Lives in Abstraction - the imagined memoirs of a surrealist poet
by Red Chucks
Summary: This is actually a Surrealissimo fanfic, based on the characters played by Noel Fielding (Bauer) and Julian Barratt (Rosey) in the 2002 film 'Surrealissimo'. Hope it's ok to have it here.
1. Chapter 1

To my dearest -,

In answer to your questions about the artist whose work and photo adorn my wall I write you letter, for I know it was rude of me to dismiss your questions so bluntly, and because it is, perhaps, time for this story to be told.

It was a brief affair. (Such a start to a letter. My apologies for my melodrama.)

But it was a brief affair.

Well, brief by the standards of time spent in each others arms. But it has never truly ended, for he has been in my thoughts and haunting my dreams every day since we parted.

Even in death our affair is not over, for he is with me still in so many ways. And, yes, I know he is dead. He would not have ceased his correspondence with me for anything less than death and his last letter was full of the sentimentality and nostalgia that is typical of the dying. And now it is just me alone, carrying on a secret love affair with no one left to reciprocate the pain.

I have never spoken of it. I am not so good at talking aloud, not like him. He could talk for hours of nonsense and truth until one finally saw how thin the veil between the two was. But I am a man of letters. So I shall write it to you, sweet child of mine, so that you will understand that I understand something of the pain you are in, that you are not alone, that you are not an abomination, and that love such as yours has always existed, even if we left little trace of it.

And perhaps I do this for myself as well. I have never put down on paper what passed between he and I but I think it needs to be done, for me to find the peace my soul is craving. I shall try not to be too extreme in the relating of our more intimate times together but, then again, I make no promises, for the truth, once begun, is often like a burst blister - it must all come out, and come out quickly, if the wound is to heal.

So now, without further waffling and old man's procrastination, let me write for you the tale of Victor Bauer, the Surrealists, and the year I discovered that, for all my biting repartee against the romantics and those who lived in denial of the brutal truth of our godless world, I had a soul mate, and he was a man of ridiculous ambiguity and strangeness to rival even Dali, but whose hame has been forgotten, which I think, in the end, was just what he wanted.

Victor Bauer, I was told before I met him, was an insufferable man and a compulsive liar, but with good connections and a sharp eye for art of any form that transcended the mediocre. I had seen a few of his works in a back street gallery, rather too full of whimsy perhaps, but something about them pulled at me and when offered the chance to make his acquaintance at a party I could not refuse. He had power over me, it seems, before we had ever met.

It was nineteen-thirty-one and I was a floundering poet approaching the age of forty with frightening speed, searching desperately for a direction in life and doing rather unsavory things for money. I had offered my services to several women of wealth, and had my offer accepted more often than I thought my body merited, because women of a certain social class liked to be romanced by a poet. I had posed for artists looking for male model and a week ago I had written pamphlets for a local politician, under a pseudonym of course, simply to get money for cigarettes and rum.

What poetry I was able to write was full of anger and vitriol but lacking in any deeper substance. It was empty words with no heart, no deeper meaning. I was lost. My life was a grey pattern of orgasms, booze, and blinding self-hatred and I was desperate to experience something, anything, that would allow me to feel again.

I knew of the Surrealists, had read their Second Manifesto of 1929, and wished to somehow weasel my way into their ranks but did not know how. Until, one Saturday morning, a man I knew, a man I had modeled for, by the name of Max Ernst, ran into me in the street. He quite ran into me, spilling the contents of his grocery bag over me and the street and, when I had helped him to repack it, minus the bottle of olive oil, which I was now, sadly, wearing, and he had apologised profusely, he invited me to the party he was hosting with a friend of his that very evening.

He pulled a stick of graphite from the pocket of his waistcoat with a flourish that I admit, impressed me, and wrote the address of the party onto the white cuff of my shirt sleeve before rushing off, apologising again for drenching me and suggesting that I turn up late and bring the poems I had shown him the previous Spring.

I did not know what to think of such an odd encounter. I had never received such a strange invitation to a party before and a large part of my brain was determined that I should not go for surely it would end in disaster and humiliation. My heart, however, seemed more inclined to see the chance encounter with Ernst as an act of fate that needed to be acted upon, and I spent several hours pacing about my cramped room, trying to weigh the pros and cons of attending the party and what I could possibly wear if I did indeed cave to my heart. It was an afternoon of great (if needless) stress but eventually, with the help of the last of my alcohol and too many badly rolled cigarettes, I resolved to go along for a short while, just to catch a glimpse of the Surrealists who I so admired.

I tried to clean myself thoroughly of the olive oil that had been spilled on my face and hands but like to imagine that the oil, and the youthful glow it gave to my skin that evening, played a part in Victor's attraction to me. It could not have been any beauty of my own possession for as you can see, I far from an adonis, what ever he chose to call me when he was feeling complimentary.

The party was rather more raucous than I had been expecting. Wine flowed and smoke and laughter hung heavy in the air and I ached to be able to throw myself into the whirl of conversation and debate, but could not. Several of the ladies I knew well, they too were models (and other things), but most of the men were a mystery to me and so I stood, in a corner by the patio doors where the light was dim and I might go unnoticed, with my poems folded under my arm and a drink in my hand, wishing I knew how to talk to others.

Ernst approached me eventually, hardly remembering who I was, but the woman with him, Violette, she knew me and had known me, and when Ernst excused himself in order to speak with Breton - which he announced with such pomposity I thought his chest would rise him right off the floor, as full of hot air as it was - Violette stayed and watched the room with me for some time, pointing out people she thought I might like to know, and others who she knew for a fact (so she said) that I would loathe. She was a tiny woman, was Violette, and seemed far too young for the knowledge in her head but who, like so many, had been trying to grow during the Great War, when food was scarce, and scarcer still for a young girl on her own. She had a slow way of moving her head when she looked over a room and when I was a younger man I had imagined her as a queen rather than woman of many, less than proper, pursuits - surveying her subjects rather than her potential prey.

Her eyes fixed on a thin, young man at the opposite end of the room and my eyes too were drawn in that direction. His face was striking, not quite a man's face, not quite a woman's (though there was definitely something feminine about it), it was something other, and the fact that I found it beautiful shocked me. He was talking with two other men, one who was looking at him skeptically while the other seemed bored, though I could not see how that could be possible based on the way the young man was gesticulating as he spoke.

His eyes were large and sparkling from wine, his hair, slicked back from his face in an oiled tail, was unfashionably long, and his nose stuck out like an abstract sculpture on his face and yet I thought he was the most glorious creature I had ever seen.

"Who is he?" I mumbled to Violette and she looked away from him long enough to register the desire on my face before returning her gaze to the man in the corner.

"Victor Bauer," she told me, rolling the name across her tongue like it was a fine wine to be savoured. "He's Austrian. A madman. He will paint and talk and argue with his models but never tries to take them. He will say he has a wife waiting for him back in Vienna one day, and that he is sworn to a life of celibacy on another, but none of us believe him," she finished with a smile that was almost a smirk.

"And why is that?" I asked, my eyes still fixed upon the man's animated face.

"Because," she told me, with some amusement. "He is a liar. He lies for fun, to confuse others, because he forgets the truth. He infuriates most men because he will tell them twenty facts that all sound like truth when in reality on half can be believed. But only Bauer knows which half. Would you like to meet him?"

"Yes," I said quickly, and Violette was gone before I could alter my reply in order to seem less desperate. Instead I kept my eyes on Monsieur Victor Bauer.

I watched as Violette strode over to him, ignoring the other men who tried to get her attention, and draping herself over Bauer to whisper seductively in his ear. He grinned, wide and devilish, before excusing himself and following her away from the men he had been so recently in conversation with. Their eyes followed Violette, lustful and jealous in equal measures, but my eyes, still, could only see him.

And then, all too quickly, he stood before me, and my eyes could not take him in enough - roving over his slim frame - hidden though it was in the ill-fitting suit - and my mind could not think of a single word to send to my mouth by way of greeting.

"Victor," Violette said warmly, "this is Monsieur Rosey. Gui, this is Monsieur, Bauer."

He smiled at me, tilting his head to better look at me from below, as if it were the more interesting angle, and my mouth opened, dry and empty, as a blush began to creep up my neck to paint my jaw and cheeks a burning, mottled pink.

"Hello," he said, his accent apparent but not thick or jarring, and I blinked as I looked into his eyes. They were blue. I hadn't been able to tell before, when he was across the room, but now I could see that they were a pale blue, almost green, like a shallow sand pool at the beach of Porto Pollo.

I tried to reply in kind but still could not speak, and felt my embarrassment increase as I gaped at him like a simpleton, waiting for the moment when he would surely laugh and turn away from me. But he did not. He did laugh, but it was light and good natured and he took my arm, steering me out through the patio doors and into the cool, dark garden, expressing his need for some air.

"The room was too hot for you also," he told me matter-of-factly once we were in the relative privacy of the garden, hidden from the party by a wall overgrown with what smelt like bougainvillea.

"Yes," I panted, trying to breathe as I regained the power of speech. "Yes, and... hello."

He smiled at me again at that, and a strange sensation filled my stomach. It was like sitting in the bathtub as the water is let out and feeling it swirl around you as it is sucked down into the pipes. It was unsettling, but I wanted to feel more of it.

"So, Gui Rosey," Victor said, saying my name in a way it had never been said before, slow almost obscene. "What are you?"

"Sorry?" I stuttered, looking at him in confusion as he leaned gracefully against the wall, almost disappearing into the tendrils and leaves of the hanging plants.

"Everyone in there is something. They are artists, writers, poets, philosophers, politicians, or some combination of the above. They aren't really friends, only not-quite enemies, staying close to one another like a herd of zebra."

"Zebra?"

"Indeed," he nodded at me. "They are fascinating creatures, zebras. Stupid but fascinating. There are a few at the menagerie here but they are poor specimens, I feel certain of it. I have read of them. I would like to see them in their proper habitat. Zebra look so very flashy on their own you see, my dear Rosey. But in reality their stripes are all so similar to one another's that they can stand or run together and the lions cannot tell one from another, and so they are safe. The men in there are zebras."

"I see," I said quietly, and the more I thought about his words the more I did understand what he meant. "And what are you?"

"A horse," he told me with a laugh, throwing his head back to cackle at the moon like it was the wittiest joke in creation. "A black and white horse that might pass for a zebra from a distance, when surrounded by other zebras, but which, when seen at arms length, is nothing but an ordinary, rather small, horse."

"Surely not," I argued, for surely he was far more exotic than any of the posturing intellectuals in that room. Except that perhaps a horse could be exotic when surrounded by zebra.

He grinned at me, his face in the dim light even more strange than before, and more enticing.

"I am a horse," he assured me. "But barely one. I am not a stallion, I might pass as a mare. Perhaps I am a mule. Some of the fools in there call me so," he said with a hard edge to his voice. "But what are you?"

"A poet, but not a very good one," I said, looking out into the dark, enclosed garden, wondering if that made me as pointless and self-indulgent as the men Bauer had so recently been ridiculing.

"A poet, but not a very good one," he repeated and I felt my cheeks begin to burn with shame again until he pressed his hand to my arm, just above my wrist. "Then you are worth more than all of those men who have left behind their self doubt in pursuit of intellectual purity. Better to be starving and striving than toasted by idiots."

I turned back to him, searching his face for a sign of malice or deceit, for some indication of the liar I had been warned he was, but his face was open and smooth and there was something in his eye that made me want to be closer to him, so I took a step forward until our bodies were no more than a centimeter apart, and felt his hand close more tightly around my wrist. He tilted his chin, this time upward, until his lips were so close to mine that the thought of kissing him filled my mind. I had never wanted to kiss another man, had always believed - even though my faith in God had been destroyed by the war and by the books that preached reason over religion - that attraction between two men, homosexuality, was an illness of the mind, or a weakness of character. And yet here I was, standing in a darkened garden, our only light the gibbous moon and the glow of the party through the patio doors, pressing my body against that of another man while my brain bubbled with thoughts of kissing him, holding him, feeling his body and letting him feel mine.

I didn't dare move, but in the end I did not need to. He leaned ever closer, raising onto his toes so that he could run his long, impossible nose against my jaw as he whispered reassurances to me.

"I saw you watching me," he murmured. "And I saw the look in your eye. But you do not need to be afraid, Rosey, there's nothing to fear. I can feel it too, the pull between you and I. It is not common, but it is important. I think it is fate."

His lips grazed against the stubble of my cheek as he leaned higher, his hands clamped onto my arms tightly as pressed his mouth to my ear.

"Come home with me, Gui Rosey."

It was a command, not a question, and he said my name, again, like it was something delicious and obscene and I had no choice but to nod and turn my head in search of those lips which, when they met mine, I could not bare to part with.

The kisses, which I thought would be furious, being between two men, were in reality feather light and I was shocked by the tenderness and the reverence of Victor's lips. He kissed like a person in love, like one baring their soul, and I received them with as much returning reverence as I could summon, stroking his cheek once he had freed my arm from his grasp, instead pressing his palm to my chest.

When I felt the shudder run through his slight frame and heard and felt the sob leave his mouth and enter mine I thought for a moment that I had hurt him, even though our kisses were soft and careful but when he pulled back from my lips I could see that there was something making him shake that was not pain, at least not of the physical sort, for there was a yearning pouring forth from him and a desire in his eyes that I knew I would have to surrender to.

"Come home with me, Gui Rosey," he said again, his voice deeper and roughened from our passions.

And I did.


	2. Chapter 2

The rooms of Victor Bauer were as chaotic as his outward persona and are, to my mind, worthy of some attention here. Even as full of wine and lust and longing as I was that first night, I could not help but stop and stare at the strange living space before me.

Bauer trotted ahead of me to pull the sheets of his bed into some sort of order as I stared at the walls of books that bowed the flimsy planks of the bookcases, and at the additional piles of books on the floor, spilling across the rough boards in places and serving as perches for plates and mugs in others. Where there were not books there were jars of brushes and paint powders and oils and canvases and sheets of paper pinned to the walls. And a myriad of half finished paintings, the easels of which, I realised with a smile, were mostly made of stacks of books and older canvases.

The wardrobe was bursting with a strange array of clothing, some of it distinctly feminine, and the large armchair and sagging bed were both covered in aging, but brightly coloured, pillows and throw rugs. It seemed like the sort of space that most of the aspiring artists in Paris tried desperately to create for themselves - to generate the appropriate, artistic atmosphere - but unlike those men who were aiming for an aesthetic, Bauer's rooms had a shambolic truth to them which suggested that they had been grown, rather than planned or thought out.

The look of concern and what might have been shame that I saw on Bauer's face when he turned from the bed to face me confirmed for me that he was not used to visitors and was not entirely aware of how well his surroundings suited him. It also made my blood race in my veins with desire and the need to hold and protect him. I wanted to cross the room in swift strides and take him in my arms, but I could not. The confidence I had felt as we had kissed, and as we had left the party (the very picture of nonchalance), had faded along with the wine as we walked through the streets to Bauer's home, and I was left with a deep, aching need to be with him and continue on the path that our kisses had set before us, but with seemingly no way to take that first step.

He too seemed to sense it, the unease, because he crossed to the small cupboard that served as his pantry and retrieved a bottle of wine and two mugs. He placed them on the stack of books by the bed and then approached me, taking my hand in his two and pulling me slowly, non-threateningly, toward the bed. His hands were small and delicate compared to my large one, but surprisingly calloused and sure, which, in that strange moment, reassured me.

"Come," he said, his voice light and soft as he brought me to the bed, sitting me down on its edge like I was an invalid in his care. "You can do the cork."

He pushed the bottle into my hands and I smiled up at him, my heart speeding as he smiled back coyly. I do not doubt he could have managed that cork on his own - I have seen him open many bottles of wine since - but I was grateful for the task, digging my pen knife in and pulling the cheap cork free in three twists of my wrist. He held out the mugs and I poured us each a generous amount before he handed me my mug and put the bottle back onto its book perch.

Bauer sat beside me on the bed, the soft, lumpy mattress dipping and forcing us into proximity, our hips pressed together and shoulders touching so that

I could feel the heat of his body radiating outwards, enveloping me. I gulped at the wine, though it was cheap and burned my throat, but lowered my mug when I noticed Victor do so, turning my body to try and face him, my chest tight with anticipation.

He brought his hand up to my cheek, such a tender gesture that it caught me off guard, though I had done just the same when we kissed in the garden, and it was my turn to shiver involuntarily at the electricity that crackled through us both. He pressed his lips to mine, a strange sensation because even if his lips were soft the hour was late enough for me to feel the bristling hairs that roughened the skin of his face.

His mouth moved slowly, lazy and close lipped against mine as he continued to stroke my cheek with his small, strong fingers, but with his other hand he began to push my jacket from my shoulders, followed by my braces until I realised that several of my shirt buttons had been unfastened and his hand was sliding across my chest, bitten fingernails scratching against my prickling skin.

I pushed my face against his, desperate for more; more of him, more of the sensations of need and rightness and rippling heat that were surging forth from him and washing over in to me like wine into a chalice. But when I lifted my hand to his shirt front, to undress him as he was so deftly disrobing me, my fingers pressed against the hard, flat plane of his chest, and I faltered.

I have had, I am not proud to admit, a great number of lovers, but until that moment I had never put my hand to the chest of a lover and not felt the softness of a breast under my palm.

I pulled back, turning my head away so swiftly that Bauer, whose eyes were closed, fell against me, his nose bumping my cheek bone and his lips sliding against my jaw, opening in confusion.

"Rosey?" he asked breathily, but I could not answer him.

I did not know what I could say in the face of his wanting. I wanted it too, though I did not know what _it_ was, only that I needed to be a part of him even whilst my reason screamed at me that I was wrong, that the man who I thought I was would not do this. Gui Rosey would not do this. Yet as the seconds passed my lips began to burn in the absence of his touch and I realised that in fact I did not know myself at all and that the Gui Rosey who had inhabited my body for the last thirty-five years had been a stranger, and _he_ had been wrong.

"Rosey," Victor crooned in my ear, his hands flitting over the skin of my face and neck like moths against a lampshade. "My Rosey."

I turned back toward him, asking the question with my eyes that my mouth could not formulate and I watched as the smile stretched across his beautiful, alien face once more as he nodded sagely, like he knew my thoughts and my fears and held all of the answers.

He lifted the mug of wine to my lips, forgotten as it had been in my lap, and I drank like a man dying of thirst until nothing remained. His own wine had fallen to the floor, bleeding out onto the uneven boards like a fatal wound and he let my empty mug fall as well, bouncing when it should have broken, and rolling through the wine to leave a trail under the bed. And as I watched it all it seemed so very important, though I didn't know how. I am sure Victor could have given me a dozen reasons why the image of red wine staining wood and drizzling from two chipped and battered mugs was of vast significance, smiling and laughing all the while.

I was not permitted to muse for long because Bauer's lips were kissing a path from the corner of my jaw to my lips and I opened to permit him by some reflex, feeling his tongue slide over my teeth to stroke inside my mouth, languid and strong and wet, kissing the way no woman I had known ever had.

He removed my jacket my braces and my shirt without once breaking the kiss and my skin flushed with heat despite the chill in the air and when he lay me down on his bed, his hands directing me firmly until my head was against the pillows, then tugged roughly to remove my trousers, I felt a jolt of heat in my loins that surprised me enough that I began to kiss back in earnest.

Those kisses, in the way of such acts of passion, seemed to last an aeon and mere seconds all at once, and when he moved his mouth away from mine it seemed too soon, until I realised that he was sliding down my body to tug off my shoes and threadbare socks, followed quickly by my trousers and pants, leaving me naked, exposed and pale amid the garish colours of his bedclothes.

I tried to cover my nakedness with my hands but he stopped me with a shake of his head and watched, his pale eyes bright and sparkling, as my member filled with its arousal until it sat heavy and pornographic against the crease of my thigh.

He was, I realised with some distress, still clothed, but as I lay paralysed on his bed he slowly removed his garments - the cream jacket and white shirt, cream trousers, socks and shoes, and his underthings, until he stood before me, shamelessly naked, matching a childish naivety at being nude with a blatant sexuality that was unnerving.

His shoulders were surprisingly broad for one so slender, his muscles lean, his skin tight and youthful, the ribs and hip bones visible in the way common to boys still in adolescence. The suit, ill fitting as it had been, had aged him and hidden the boyishness, as well as disguising the sweep of his narrow waist and rounded hips and thighs. The very image of him was confusing, boyish yet womanly, and I wondered (for the first time but not the last) if he were some sort of hermaphrodite - a child of the Roman gods - but his chest was flat, if hairless, and the evidence of his maleness stood proud and erect between his legs.

It made my heart rate increase, like an athlete anticipating the starter pistol and (though I am sure you do not wish to read this) in that moment I would have offered up my body to him, to do with as he pleased. But he was not the sort of man to demand such a sacrifice, or with any desire to cause humiliation. In public, I learnt over the months that followed, Victor Bauer would insult and scold and deride his fellow artistes, but never to cause them shame. He had a gift for bringing out the best in those he chose to nurture, and his sharp remarks were served to that purpose. If one was truly despised by Bauer he simply erased them from his existence. But on that first night, as I lay beneath him, my body on display as it had never been for any other artist, I fancied that I _filled_ his existence, not through anything I had achieved, but because he willed it.

He reached down beneath his bed and for a moment I believed that he was retrieving our cups, until I heard the drag of thick glass against the wooden floor. He reappeared, a bottle of olive oil in hand, and climbed onto the bed, throwing his leg over mine to straddle my thighs, our bodies so close to touching, yet he held himself bare centimeters away.

The sight of his length, flushed and virile as it was, and just above my own, less impressive, member, caused the confusion and fear to rise again, and he sensed the change in me, cocking his head to the side to examine me, like the pigeons did each morning from their perch on my window sill.

"There is no need to fear, Rosey," he whispered to me. "Very few are lucky enough to meet the mirror of their soul, and by such chance! We must not spurn Fate when she has handed us such a blessing. It would be blasphemy."

"Mirror?" I asked him faintly, trying to process what he was telling me and failing abysmally. "Bauer, I have never... I am not..."

"And yet you feel it," he told me, rocking his hips forward but still keeping our bodies apart by the fraction of a hair. "You are mine, Gui Rosey - my Rosey - just as I am yours. We must follow the passions that are pulling at us, it is the only way."

"But I have never..." I tried to explain but my tongue was heavy in my mouth and the image of him, knelt above me like a fantasy from the depths of my psyche, was turning every argument I might have had into meaningless syllables inside my head, and it was not difficult for him to show me the error in my fear.

"You have never," he repeated, his voice on the edge of mocking and gaining fire as he spoke. "So, you have never. There was a time in your life when you had never tried to walk, when you had never written a word, when you had never sat down to pen a verse, when you had never tasted wine or inhaled tobacco or touched your own penis when it grew hard! Your life has been full of 'never haves' Monsieur Rosey, I can see it in the slope of your shoulders and the fear in your gaze and I feel it in the need that saturates your spirit and I shall not be one of your 'never haves', Monsieur. Not tonight."

His voice had increased in both speed and volume as he spoke and, above me as he was, the stubbornness of his jaw was evident and the look in his eyes as he gazed upon me was a maelstrom that I could not hope to understand.

I feared that he needed me to say something in return but what, I ask you, could I say in response to such a compelling argument? Even so many years later it is burned into my skull and I not only recall the words but the way he said them and the way his bare chest heaved as he spoke so passionately. And, when I opened my mouth, he did not allow me to respond. Instead he lowered his body, only so slightly, until our manhoods were pressed together, and the words that I could not summon in any case came out as a desperate moan.

He rocked his hips steadily as he lowered himself down until his whole body pressed against mine and his mouth could latch on to my neck. I tried to breathe but could not convince my lungs and throat to cooperate as every fibre of my being focused on the sensations of his lips and teeth bruising the skin over my jugular and the indescribable heat and friction of his hips and groin against my own.

He did not cease until I was twitching and (I must admit) whining in my need, releasing my neck with a wet shlack as he sat up, grinding our genitals together even more. He grabbed up the bottle of oil from the mess of blankets and pulled the stopper free with his teeth, spitting it across the room with a crow of laughter that my body echoed desperately. My laughter increased as he began to drizzle the oil over both our members, a desperate, moaning giggle that wobbled on the precipice of hysteria due to the intensity of the physical contact and the building sense that my mind and soul and heart were being linked with this man's, the bond tightening with every touch and passing moment.

But once the mirth had erupted, I could not seem to contain it, let alone force it to stop. It was the second time in under twenty-four hours that I had been covered in oil and it felt like a baptism.

He poured the thick liquid over my stomach and chest also and, when he was apparently satisfied, carefully set the bottle down on the floor. The predatory look in his eye gave me pause but then those petit, dextrous hands began to slide up and down my torso, spreading the oil until I shone in the lamp light, like a sculpture he was still in the process of fashioning and was not yet satisfied with.

He moved his hand down to my throbbing arousal and spread the oil there as well, ensuring that I was well coated - and moaning desperately - before he lowered his body over mine once again, and we began to rut against each other, the oil making us slide easily. He started out slow and languid bur our pace soon turned frantic and everything about the scene became bestial and crazed. Our kisses were a messy clash of tongues and teeth and when we could no longer kiss we breathed heavily against each others mouths and my brain vaguely registered the fact that he smelt and tasted of wine and oil and sweat and musk and tobacco but also of gouache paints and, strangely, the bougainvillea flowers we had hidden amongst in the darkened garden.

It was not long before I succumbed to my body's desires but he moved against me with increased vigor through my orgasm, forcing the waves of pleasure to continue on after my body had lost its ability to tolerate the stimulation. I could feel his own desperation in his panting breaths and wire tight muscles and grabbed hold of his backside roughly to stop myself from falling apart but my fingers digging in to his flesh triggered his release and I gazed up at him as he threw his head back, his hair free of its ribbon and beginning to twist and wave about his face and neck, damp with sweat and yet so utterly perfect.

I had never seen another man orgasm before and this was certainly not how I had imagined witnessing the act, but it was the decree of Fate, or Victor's decree, and it sealed him to my heart. I was his Rosey and already I could not imagine living my life outside of his company. My brain was starting to recover from our passion and I moved my arms up to his chest to hold him to me is a fierce hug that made him laugh raggedly.

He pressed tacky, sentimental kisses to my chest until I started to squirm and then bounded from the bed to retrieve a paint streaked cloth to clean us both with, smiling as he did so, glowing with more than just the oil, but like a child who had discovered something amazing and had then been told that it was theirs for the keeping.

"How old are you?" I asked him, and he blinked at my sudden question before throwing me an impish smile.

"Twenty-six," he told me, lips twitching and eyes dancing with mischief.

"And is that true?" I said, returning the smile.

"As gospel," he replied with a wink, throwing the soiled cloth over his shoulder and dragging the blankets and sheets out from under me so that he could cocoon us both in their warmth.

We were still slightly greasy from the oil and smelt indecently of sex but I could not bring myself to care. He pressed his hand into mine and our bodies melded to one another's with the utmost symmetry, and my last coherent thought before I fell asleep was the epiphany that the many pieces of myself - whilst technically being all that was needed to create a whole person - were only now slotting into place in the right order.

My first coherent thought upon waking was that I was terrifyingly in love.


	3. Chapter 3

My dear student,

Forgive me for the gap in my writing, I had to take some time to compose myself after reliving such memories and this morning I have found moving from my bed to my desk to be difficult, not for any physical reason, simply because my mind has slipped into the melancholy of remembrance. The pages I wrote yesterday were absent from my desk when I did come to it so I assume that you took and read them last night after you brought me the evening brandy.

I hope that the things I related to you were not out of line or distressing in any way. I know that in these times people are far more easy about relating such matters but I apologise if my words were unwelcome, I fear I have become somewhat prudish with age.

It is the way of such strong memories to tumble forth from one's brain without the permission of the conscious mind but strangely I feel somewhat lighter now, knowing it has been documented, and knowing that I am about to continue in my narrative.

The late morning light is shining through my windows now just as it did that morning so long ago and I hope that when I see you this afternoon I will be able to give you a testament of all else our relationship was, rather than just its carnal beginnings.

And so...

I awoke that morning to the slam of a door and, though I opened my eyes enough to take in my surroundings, I did not move from my position on the bed. The sunlight streamed through the two small windows and bounced off several tarnished mirrors which I have no doubt Bauer had positioned around his rooms to improve the quality and amount of light. His home was even more delightfully chaotic by daylight and after a moment my eyes found the man himself, striding into the room with a newspaper and an armful of foodstuffs. He let the bread, round of cheese, and small assortment of vegetables tumble onto the kitchen cupboard but did not let go of the newspaper, snorting at it instead and shaking out the pages in search of whatever article must have already caught his attention.

"Idiots," he mumbled to himself, "thinking that yet another new government will stop the crisis! Idiocy! They would imitate the Russians' brand of Socialism - as if it was socialism at all! - and ignore the starving people they should be serving, and the fascists creeping up behind them all the while! And they call me a madman!" he ranted, attempting to read the paper and set the coffee pot to boil all at once and nearly igniting his finger instead. "Idiot!"

"Are you alright?" I called, suddenly very much awake and bounding from the bed to his side in time to see him suck his burnt thumb into his mouth, his eyes wide with surprise.

"I'm sorry," he said, his tone suddenly soft, his words muffled by his finger, his eyes focused on my face, large and blue and innocent, despite the fact that my body was bared before him.

"Did you forget I was here?" I asked him, trying to make my words seem casual whilst my heart ached at the thought that he had recovered from all that we had shared the night before so easily. But he caused me no such disappointment.

"Of course not! I am sorry that I woke you. And that I frightened you. I burn my fingers with startling regularity as you can see," he held up his hands, dotted with burn scars, calloused and stained at the fingers from years of mixing and blending his paints and inks. "It is my distractible nature."

He waggled his eyebrows at me, his pale eyes dancing with the same mischief and affection as he had shown me when we met and a chuckle bubbled through me even as I began to blush at the way his gaze had begun to travel down my body.

"I should..."

" -put on the robe hanging by the door?" he suggested, completing the thought for me, and I nodded, unsure of what else I needed to say to a man who seemed to know me so well after so short an acquaintance.

He chuckled, the air puffing out through his nose and he turned back to the stove, carefully lighting the gas with a match that he then used to light his cigarette, scooping coffee from a paper bag into the percolator with little precision. He completed the tasks with such a flourish that my eyes were drawn to his strange choice of clothes - trousers tight at the waist but loose and flowing from the hips and, instead of a jacket, a short cape such as I had seen the ladies of fashion wear - and I began to laugh, until I pulled the robe over myself, the silken fabric tight over my shoulders which were so much broader than his own. How could I laugh at his attire when I was dressed in something that would have looked at home in Violette's boudoir or a cancan girl's dressing room? Not to mention that his dress, as exotic and strange as it seemed, suited him beautifully, while I simply looked ludicrous.

Bauer twirled again, snatching up his news sheet and turning to face me, his smile stretching wide as he took in my bizarre appearance, but the look in his eyes was appreciative rather than mocking, which caught me off guard so that I blushed and lowered my own gaze.

"If you do not have your own robe," he told me saucily, "we shall definitely need to pay a visit to the costume mistress at the Grand Guignol and have her measure you for one in this style. The shorter length suits you very well indeed."

My skin burned at the compliment but his response was to wrap his arms about my waist and press a reassuring kiss to the centre of my chest, an act that calmed me, excited me and terrified me all in one moment.

"I have a robe," I mumbled, pressing my nose to his freshly oiled hair, restored to its slick tail, as my brain, still not fully awake, struggled to understand what he was asking of me.

"Then we must remember to pack it with your other belongings," he explained, before I had even thought to ask. "When you move here."

At this my brain reeled and I pushed him away instinctively, blinking against the vertigo that was suddenly threatening to overtake me. His face held some hurt but mostly understanding as he guided me to his armchair and pushed me down into the sagging seat.

I remember that he spoke to me soothingly of practicalities rather than affection - that economically we would both be better off sharing rent - and that two artists living together would surely produce works of uncommon genius, and that no questions would be asked in his neighbourhood, deeply set within Quartier Pigalle as it was. He assured me also that he had no intention of advertising himself as a homosexual gentleman and that I need not fear that I would be painted with such a brush either, and at this I raised my eyes in confusion.

He was kneeling between my legs, his eyes large and imploring, the love obvious in every plane of his face, and I wondered at the sadness I could hear in his voice as he repeated that he had no intention of letting anyone know of his true inclinations or feelings for me.

"We would be arrested, if it were known," I suggested, and he smiled wanly.

"Worse than that, I think."

"We would be outcast?" I asked, and this time he nodded.

"I am already an outlier among the Surrealists," he said gravely, "for I refuse to enter into their discussions on superiority of manhood, and because they suspect me on the one hand of being a sexual pervert, and on the other of being entirely neuter. They have not yet come to a consensus on which they find more distasteful so I await their verdict patiently." His tone had grown biting and hard with sarcasm and, even though _he_ was comforting _me_ I felt the need to comfort him growing, but remained still.

"Is it so bad as that?" I asked, wondering how the men who I so admired for their liberal world views could be so closed minded as to fail to recognise the brilliance that was my Bauer.

"Quite," he whispered in a voice that made my chest ache. "Art is my life. And Paris is my home. If I were forced to leave my home again, made to feel that I was unwelcome in the galleries and gatherings of people who at least share my passion for visual creation, it..."

" -would be no life at all," I supplied and he nodded deeply, resting his cheek on my knee and holding my leg in a strange embrace that was the very image, to me, of a child abandoned. "Left again?" I asked after a pause and he laughed silently, his eyes closing against the pain that I could see in him despite his smile.

"I am an Austrian," he said simply. "My family, like the vast majority of my countrymen, are devoted Catholics. I did not come to Paris simply for the culture and dancing girls, Rosey. It was more out of necessity."

I could think of nothing to say to that revelation so instead slid my hand down to grasp his, feeling his fingers wind between mine until the closeness calmed us both.

My mind was still a mire of doubts and anxieties, even as the feeling of Victor's warm body against my bare leg leeched some of the fear away, I had so many questions in need of answers, which he seemed to sense. We had not known each other for a full twenty-fours hours yet but he had already developed the ability to know my thoughts, a talent greater even than his artistic vision.

"Have you heard of Freud?" he asked, his thumb stroking the back of my hand leisurely.

"I have," I nodded, "but I cannot admit to having actually read any of his work."

Victor grunted, his eyes still closed but his smile aimed in my direction. I looked at the closest stack of books and was able to pick out three volumes with the famous psychoanalyst's name on the spine.

"Many of his theories are not only ridiculous but dangerous," he told me with the air of a man quoting his own firmly held belief. "He is quite obsessed with sex, which cannot, I think, be entirely healthy. But his study into homosexuality... there is much there that sits very comfortably with me."

"Such as?" I asked quietly, not wishing to upset his new, dreamlike mood.

"He believes that all of us incorporate aspects of both sexes, that on a basic level we are all attracted to both sexes, or at least have the potential to be, before the dominant trait of heterosexuality asserts itself. Homosexuality is perhaps an inversion of the norm but it is biological and not an illness or a sin or a perversion or a weakness. It is not a fault," he said, his voice rising as he squeezed his eyes more firmly shut. "It is a facet, and it is not something that can be changed. Not in me at least."

Those final words held so much sadness that I leaned forward and pulled the younger man up and into my arms for a proper embrace, ignoring the way his knees pushed the flimsy robe askew in my need to restore to him the joy that the world should never be allowed to crush so callously.

The fear still bubbled but it was secondary now. I wished to be one of the so-envied, so-idealised Surrealists, discussing ideas and writing poetry that would shock the bourgeoisie and change the world, but more than any of that I wanted to enmesh my life with Bauer's until we were one creature, one beast, as we had so obviously been designed to be.

"I will need to borrow a suitcase," I told him simply, pressing my lips to his temple, a gesture I had never offered another human being. "I have one of my own but that shall only be enough..."

" -for your papers but not your clothes?"

"Yes."

He tilted his head to smile up at me and I noticed that his eyes were rimmed with red, a sight which made my own eyes prickle with the vague threat of tears. I pushed them down however and tilted my own head so that our lips were aligned and I could kiss him with greater ease.

The scratch of his unshaven chin against mine, a rasp that was unlike any I had ever heard, sent a thrill through my being and I knew it'd had a similar effect on him by the way he squirmed in my lap and pressed his hands to my face.

It seems redundant to repeat that his kisses, our kisses, were different from any I had experienced before (or since) but it is a memory that has stuck so firmly in my mind that I cannot help but dwell upon it. It was not that he was a man and therefore different from my previous partners, although the new sensations that being intimate with a man brought with it were certainly intense and mind altering. It was not that I had suddenly decided that it was better to kiss a man than to kiss a woman. No, it was, I think, the fact that it was Bauer. My movements, which were stilted and awkward with others, were like the flowing lines of a ballet dancer's body when partnered with his. Our bodies fell into sync as if by the habit of long practice and yet we were relative strangers. And Victor, my Victor, kissed with such intense passion that it did occasionally frighten me. For all of his outward confidence his kisses were often needy and desperate, at other times timid and passive, yet he always somehow managed to match them to mine.

We kissed for some minutes until he suddenly leapt from my lap with a squawk that had me desperately searching for some sort of intruder, or spider, but instead he hurried to the stove and pulled his bubbling pot of coffee from it recklessly, adding a few new scald marks to his hand in the process.

"You idiot, Victor!" he berated himself and I watched with amusement as he flustered about looking for clean mugs before he dove down onto his knees to retrieve the ones we had used the night before.

I scowled in distaste at the sight of him licking the dried wine from the rim of his cup but he shrugged at me carelessly and poured the boiling coffee into the mugs with obvious delight, trying to save his fingers but also quite evidently excited to hold his beverage. And it did smell delicious. He knew a man, he told me, a Turk who sold him the most delicious coffee in Paris at half its retail price and, when I tasted the coffee that he placed carefully in my hands, I had to agree with him.

He sat himself down artfully at my feet as we drank, letting the silence wash over us comfortably for some time until I noticed that he was picking delicately at his cape.

"Why don't you dress like this all of the time?" I asked him, gesturing at the flattering trousers and feminine blouse and cape. "Why did you choose to wear an ill-fitting suit last night when you have at your disposal such beautiful garments?"

He looked at me for a long, hard moment before replying, the playfulness gone from his body language and his voice serious.

"Fear," he told me simply.

"Fear?" I asked. "I cannot imagine you afraid, not truly. You are an artist. Surely your attire need not be linked with your sexual preferences? And Violette described you as a madman and a liar, and you are an artist! Surely you can dress as you please."

He cocked his head to look at me and I turned my own head in imitation, which made us both begin to smile wanly, but then he turned away and the connection was lost.

"I know that my fellow artists can not physically hurt me, and I am, as you say, a good enough liar to carry off any outfit I choose, but I do not wish to be shunned, and you do not understand the depth of Breton's hatred of homosexuality. And he influences people who would have no qualms about doing physical damage to my person. So I present to them as masculine as possible, and frighten them in ways that I know they can handle. But I do admit, those suits are..."

" -wearing?" I asked and he turned back to me with a grin stretching his lips wide before throwing his head back to cackle at my poor attempt at humour.

"Indeed! Wearing such clothes is horribly wearing. The attire is tiring! Oh," he cried, looking back at me, "but I love you!"

My heart fluttered at those words, despite my trepidation, because I knew already that I loved him - law and reason and society be damned - and to be reassured that the affection was reciprocated seemed like some sort of fairy tale. Not that I have ever read a fable with protagonists like we two, though it is a fine thing to imagine.

His smile deepened as he stared at me, his eyes back to twinkling, and roving over my barely covered form, slurping his coffee in a way that was intentionally noisy and insulting to the sensibilities but simply seemed to me delightfully endearing because he was _trying_ to be infuriating.

"After coffee," I told him. "You'll help me move my belongings?"

"And then introduce you to the Surrealists, perhaps? I shall wear my ugliest coat, just for you!"

He laughed at my excitement and, even though he warned me that they were flawed individuals, as human as myself, I was thrilled at the prospect of meeting them. Almost as thrilled as I was at the realisation that I was moving in with Victor Bauer, a man, one whom I loved fiercely and completely yet in ways I did not fully understand. I had never been one for adventure, had always waited for life to come to me (which is no way to live) and my one piece of true good fortune, as far as I could see, had been meeting Victor, but now I felt the desire to go forth and create my own experiences, even if the main adventure of my life - my relationship with Bauer - was mostly a covert one.

Bauer's presence made everything seem simpler, easier, more achievable than I previously imagined - even falling in love - and I vowed to do what ever he asked in order to help that love flourish and survive.

Sadly, I have never had much talent for constancy, or the keeping of vows.


	4. Chapter 4

We did not in fact meet the Surrealists until the next day thanks to the fact that Bauer, after spending several hours helping me move my smaller belongings and sell my larger ones, declared himself thoroughly sick of the outside world, took up a brush, and retreated to a corner of his rooms. Feeling drained by the exertion myself I did not begrudge him the need for time alone and so made myself comfortable in the room's singular armchair and took up my pencil and paper.

I am aware that I am not numbered among the great poets and writers of my age, I have no delusions of grandeur or that my work will survive me long. But the words that began to flow from my mind to the page before me that afternoon were certainly better than most I have written since - better than any of my published works.

I would love to be able to prove to you so but they, like the best parts of myself, belong belonged to Victor, and I do not know what has become of them.

They were not in my usual style, they had no sharp points or intricate word designs to carry them forward, they were poems that somehow encapsulated my newly found self-understanding.I filled notebooks with such verses over the next several years and showed them to no one but Bauer, who would read them silently and never comment on them in words, only in kisses, which always left me feeling strangely unsettled.

He commented happily on other poems of mine, by which I mean, criticized brutally where needed and praised when it was appropriate, but those poems were different, they were for others, for the world, and Bauer saw the world with more clarity than most and therefore made a useful editor. But the private poems, as I came to think of them, they were something apart.

I do not dare to try and recreate that first poem. I remember the sentiment of it, like feeling the edges of an object in absolute dark, which one knows well yet cannot describe by touch alone, but I do not remember the exact phrasing and I know that any attempt at recreating it would be clumsy at best. That poem, perhaps more than any other, belongs to Victor, and I wrote it as I sat in his dilapidated arm chair, watching him paint with a strange mix of vigour and dreaminess, the mirrors and the late afternoon light creating small sparks of refraction around the room, tiny glimpses of rainbow that he seemed to be recreating on his canvas.

His hair was once again escaping from its ribbon, curling in tendrils about his face and framing his large eyes and prominent cheekbones in a way that I would have thought was affectation had I not watched each lock slip free quite accidentally as he rubbed his hand across his forehead, or tucked a brush behind his ear for later use.

I do not know what terms I used to describe him in that poem - they were likely sentimental and overly romantic - and I struggle now in describing him at all. He was something other, a strange assortment of features that on their own would have been focus pulling and all together should have created something grotesque, yet fit together with absolute beauty. His personality too was strange and uncertain. He was confident in himself when it came to matters of politics and intellect and was aware of his strengths and weaknesses as an artist and spoke of his craft with candor and great maturity for a man in his twenties. He seemed to project a persona of confident, if slightly unhinged, certainty, yet I alone was privy to his moments of self-doubt, fear and intense self-loathing. Even as I watched him paint I saw him call himself an idiot for his colour choice, and a fool for his subject matter. He was often changeable, but, I realised, therein lay a large part of his charm.

As dusk began to settle I stood and began to gather up the collection of cups, mugs and plates that had found their way around the room, making my slow and roundabout way to his corner. I could see his body flagging and his eyes, which had been half-lidded for some time, were beginning to close too much for him to work effectively, but he was painting on resolutely, his mind focussed and completely unaware of my presence.

Under the pretense of taking his empty plate from him I set the piece of paper with my poem upon it next to his painting palate and glanced at his work. It was a strange assortment of coloured lines and circles, converging on a diamond that was cracked down its centre but still held together somehow, despite the damage to it.

I did not know what to make of it so carried on with my tidying and set about washing the crockery, knowing that there was nothing left to use for our evening meal except the single plate, bowl and spoon I had brought with me from my old apartment.

I became quite caught up in the menial task and when Bauer wrapped his arms around my waist from behind I jumped and nearly smashed a plate before recovering myself and spinning in his arms to face him. He tilted his chin upwards, his lips angled toward me, and I took his hint and kissed him, enjoying the faint groan that I heard in his throat at the sensation of my tongue in his mouth.

"I am tired," he told me, his words slurring slightly, though I was not entirely sure that it was tiredness and not arousal that caused the change in his speech. "Come to bed with me."

It wasn't a question and I obeyed it as the order that it was and stayed in bed with him until well after sunset, though we did not in fact sleep. That came later, after I had made him an omelet and he had opened a bottle of wine and we had talked ourselves into a stupor, speaking of nothing but the most simple things. And my final thought that night as I drifted into slumber, facing the sleeping form of my lover, was that I most definitely needed to bathe come morning.

And the next day came and I did bathe, with Bauer for company, and we set out into the world, dressed in our inconspicuous suits, to finally meet the infamous Surrealists.

I had anticipated a cafe, or some small gallery or apartment to be the setting of the Surrealist's gathering that day. I had not counted on Bauer's knack for being acquainted with every artist in Paris or the fact that some of those artists were people of renown. I had certainly not expected to find myself in the home of one Salvador Dali, shaking his hand and stammering to him that I was a fan of his work.

He blinked at me like some sort of bulbous-eyed fish as I continued to stutter my appreciation for his art until Bauer swooped in to excuse us, his hand on my lower back as he told Dali that his latest work was brilliant in concept and execution - _"The concept of time as a subject for an artist, who would have thought it? Truly original" _\- but would do better to be less publicly enjoyed. Dali shrugged but his expression was knowing and as Bauer led me away from him and toward the bar I wondered at the coolness between them.

"What did you mean?" I asked him as he guided me around the groups of men and women, all dressed far more formally than we two. "That his work would do better to be less popular."

He grimaced and did not reply until we had reached the end of the room, and the alcohol. He had become increasingly agitated during our brief time in Dali's home, even though he had introduced me to several artists and writers of note, including Pablo Picasso himself, and despite his easy outward manner I imagined I could feel the anxiety within him, the same anxiety that bubbled dangerously within my own chest, simply by being surrounded by so many people.

"It is nothing," he told me once he had acquired a whiskey for each of us. "He is a genius and he is well aware of his superior skill. My work is... underdeveloped, compared to his. A year ago I held an exhibition and he came, which increased the number of people exposed to my work, I suppose, but..."

"-he was not appropriately appreciative?"

Bauer snorted but nodded.

"I myself told him all that was lacking in each piece. But he suggested that I might do better if I was less concerned with politics. He does not like to entangle himself in political leanings, he would like to ensure that he appeals to the widest possible audience and I cannot say that I approve."

"You disapprove of him because he is popular?" I asked, wanting to know more of his opinions but not wishing to upset him.

Instead he gave me his madman's smile and clinked his glass against mine.

"Correct. But when you put it like that it makes me seem petty," he chuckled. "I think I dislike him mostly because he suggested that I needed a muse and insinuated that his woman was available if I desired her."

I was inwardly appalled but the exaggerated disgust on his face made the laughter boil out of me, the nerves and shock bursting forth as he continued to pull faces and whisper to me the abject terror he felt at the suggestion that he would be interested in sex with another man's partner while said man watched.

"Have you never had a female lover, then?" I asked as discreetly as I could manage, aware that we were surrounded by people who we both wished to be accepted by but shook his head with continued exaggeration, his face scandalised while his eyes twinkled merrily.

"I have only had one lover before you," he said, leaning close to whisper the words into my ear. "And he was very much a man."

I felt the heat build under my collar and wished that we could excuse ourselves together until I had my passions back under control but before I could tell him of my feelings he rocked back onto his heels and downed the rest of his whiskey.

"I have to piss," he told me bluntly. "Wait here and try not to stutter at anyone."

I tried to argue but he was gone too soon, slipping away like a sprite with no real substance to his form and I looked about the room feeling the panic rise once more. I wanted to be there, had been near desperate to make the acquaintance of the Surrealists, but that did not lessen my agitation at being surrounded by so many strangers.

I tried to make my way toward the open garden doors but only managed three steps before I was intercepted and a hand thrust into mine by a man who I immediately recognised as Andre Breton, a man I had idolized for over half a decade. And he was introducing himself to me.

"Ah, Monsieur Rosey, a pleasure to meet you," he said formally, pulling himself up to his full heigh until he stood just taller than me. "You and Bauer are old friends? I am canny, you see, and can tell that you are obviously old comrades. Perhaps you can tell us more about him. Are you claiming Austrian extraction like our good friend Bauer?"

"Well, no, sir, I, that is, we..." I stumbled, not wanting to give away any of Bauer's secrets, even to a man I hoped to be liked by.

"Ah, but your accent is quite Parisian now," he said with a smile, pushing a fresh drink into my hand and smiling warmly. "And I was told only a moment ago that you are a poet, yet I do not know of your work. How can that be, when I pride myself on knowing all of the writers of note in this beautiful city?"

"Well, I..."

"Are you an 'underground' poet?" he pressed. His demeanor was outwardly charming but something around the tightness of his eyes sent sirens wailing in my mind. He was more intelligent than I and quite determined to get to the truth of mine and Bauer's existence. "Many of us have long suspected Bauer to be of that ilk, is that where you met?"

"No, indeed, I, that is..." I floundered quite terribly, until Bauer returned and stepped in to save me.

"We are old comrades, Breton, how very astute of you. But not from any connection of homeland or anarchist movements or romantic notions of that kind," he smiled, turning the matter into a joke whilst Breton scowled. "No, we served in the Great War together, brothers in arms."

"_You_ fought in the war?" Breton asked us, his eyes narrowing in suspicion as he tried to discover whether Bauer was telling him truth or fiction.

I turned to Victor, whose face seemed so sincere that even I believed him for a moment. His demeanor turned melancholy and his eyes wistful in one flutter of his long lashes, as if he was remembering times gone by and comrades lost on the front line, and I was forced to cover my desperate need to laugh by putting my hand over my mouth and looking away, sure that I had blown his fable in the doing but unable to restrain myself.

"He doesn't like to speak of it," Bauer spoke in a confidential tone and Breton responded with an understanding murmur, suddenly convinced that we were indeed veterans of the great European upheaval.

I, meanwhile, felt ready to burst from the laughter building up within me, and raised my hand to Victor's shoulder to cue him that we very much needed to leave. He patted it consolingly and gave it a reassuring squeeze but obviously had no intention of finishing quite yet.

"Such difficult memories for all of us," he said seriously. "And the leaders, the politicians, they all swore to us that it would never happen again, is it not true, Breton? And yet here we are, with the darkness rising once more and the world turns a blind eye to the danger."

"Oh, I concur!" Breton exclaimed, bemoaning the fact that the right wing factions were creeping back into the political arena, and had Bauer seen the latest news from Germany, and was it not distressing.

"Hitler," Bauer spat and the venom in his voice sent chills down my spine. "I loathe that I was so much as born in the same country as that man. He will fill the world with death and despair if he is not stopped soon, and Italy shall follow him into the mire. And to think," he suddenly exclaimed dramatically, clutching my hand in a way that made me feel on the edge of hysteria. "We fought to ensure that such tyranny would never rise again. It is distressing in the extreme, Breton, I know you understand it better than most men, you have the philosopher's mind and the artist's heart. But now you will excuse us a moment."

Breton nodded vigorously, completely mollified by Bauer's performance and Victor guided me swiftly through the room to the exit, ushering me across the hall and into a small study. He did not remove his arm from around my back until the door was shut and the key turned in the lock but once he had ensured our safety he fell against my chest in a fit of giggles, harmonising with my own quiet hysterics.

It had been a performance worthy of the best playhouses in Paris and I could tell by the thrumming of his muscles as I held him to me that he was riding a wave of adrenaline and was extremely pleased with himself.

"How did he believe that you and I fought in the war together? You were barely past childhood when the war ended and I am nearly ten years your senior! How?" I asked him, struggling to focus on anything but his warm body against mine as my mind reeled and my body swayed nauseatingly. "How did he believe you?"

He shrugged, and I forced myself to focus on the weave of his jacket, a ridiculously ugly brown thing that he had chosen that morning with the sole purpose of making me laugh. He was so very small inside that jacket and at the same time, too large and alive and bright to be contained by it and I held him as tightly as I was able, feeling him squeak and laugh as I pressed him to me, his arms trapped to his sides in my embrace.

"They just do," he mumbled into my shirt, his nose nuzzling against my heart. "There is no reason to it. They just do."

Which was the truth of it, I suppose. And just as they accepted Bauer's strangeness (though they were ever-wary of his inconstancy) the Surrealists accepted mine, through my association with him. When I was reticent it was because I was a man of deep thought and when I laughed to the point of irrationality it was because I was an artiste and therefore walked the line of madness (and shared rooms with Bauer, which, I was told would surely send any man insane).

And so that was how it all began. By 1932 I was officially a Surrealist and could not imagine a better life than to spend my days writing and debating with men such as Andre Breton, Yves Tanguy, and Benjamin Peret. My nights and spare moments were likewise filled, but they were filled mostly by Victor who was my heart and soul the beauty of my life. The danger of discovery was ever present but it became, to me, like radio static. While Bauer fought daily with maintaining appearances of heterosexuality and normalcy, no one questioned my sexuality or passions, and I became foolishly complacent, allowing other evils to enter my mind, new dangers that I thought were blessings, until the world that had been built lovingly for me, began to crumble.


	5. Chapter 5

You have read my first book of published poetry and it makes me feel that perhaps I do not need to recount to you that part of my life. I became firm friends with Breton that year, mostly due to the fact that I was too shy to argue against him on most points, that and his affection for my poetry. It was he who nurtured my writing and honed it to a satirical point, he who made it possibly for me to publish, and he who ensured that I would be included in the intimate gatherings and the published collaborations that the Surrealist group produced. He was a mentor to me, despite the fact that we were the same age, and as the year of nineteen thirty-two continued I found myself spending not just most of my days but a great many of my nights in his company.

Victor was not often invited to these gatherings, preferring galleries, theaters and coffee houses, or his own company, and it was not until after the fact that I realised how I had mistreated him. When we were together our personalities shifted until they fit flawlessly together and we shared a single mind - our thoughts synching so perfectly that we could finish each others sentences without pause - but in public he became increasingly skittish, pulling at his clothes and trying to walk so close beside me that it would cause us both to stumble. At public engagements his mask of self-assured mischief was always firmly in place but after the event was done he would too often crumble in exhaustion.

Those nights, I now look back upon with deep regret, were most often the times when I would be so full of alcohol that he was forced to support me on the journey home. Alcohol was for me, as it has been for so much of humanity, a useful social lubricant, allowing me to speak and debate and laugh with my peers without the feeling in the back of my throat that I was about to vomit over the people standing closest to me. Bauer, when he was there, would drink simply to avoid being sober as the group around him laughed and debated what was and what might be sexual perversion, what was acceptable, what a man should be allowed to do to a woman's body, the place of sex in art.

As the months bled together I became something of an expert among our group as a man of significant sexual experience but, having seen the anger with which Breton responded to any opinion that homosexual sodomy was no more perverted than heterosexual sodomy, I was careful to keep the name and sex of my current partner a secret and refrained from mentioning him in any way when the discussions of sex began, going so far as to spread the rumour that I had given up sex in favour masturbation as an act of non-conformism which, needless to say, men like Breton, Tanguy and Eluard toasted as genius. I tried not to mention those discussions to Bauer, because he did not respond well to them, a fact that I tried to respect even if I did not understand.

Bauer was by no means a prudish man, he was often the instigator of our love making and happily expressed his preferences in bed and told me how the things I did to him made him feel (often in toe-curling detail), but when he talked of sex it was always couched in terms of our relationship and strengthening the bond between us. The acts for him were framed in the context of romantic love rather than lust or passion and he lived by his own set of rules; rules which I struggled to learn.

I recall, for instance, the first time he took my erect member in to his mouth. We had spent the day lazily, waking late and barely moving from the bed except to use the toilette and to fetch wine and bread from across the room. He had kissed me from my forehead down to my navel, stopping on his way to lick and suck my nipples in a manner that always thrilled me, and I had anticipated the moment when he would reach for his trusty bottle of oil so that we could frot against each other and achieve orgasm in our usual way, but he did not.

Instead he continued his kisses downwards until he was face to face with my erection, his eyes crossing slightly as he tried to look at it at close range in a way that, when I looked back upon it, I find absurdly funny, but which at the time left me panting. He was eternally fascinated by the appearance and slide of his palm against my uncut member and he took it in hand with a look of captivated first lick of his tongue shocked me. Fellatio was not such an accepted act in those days and I had never felt such a sensation as he was providing. When he continued on and drew the head of my penis into his mouth the intensity doubled and I began to moan loudly, which seemed to spur him on, taking me deeper into his mouth and whimpering around me, and within minutes I was incoherent and was unable to warn him of my impending orgasm, climaxing into his hot mouth whilst black spots danced before my eyes and I fought for breath.

It took me several moments of deep breathing to realise that Victor was not with me on the bed but sitting crumpled on the floor beside it, coughing and choking, his naked frame looking so fragile and his ribs shaking. I very nearly fell from the bed in my hast to kneel by him and when I tilted his face up toward mine I could see that his eyes were red and blood shot, but that he looked proud of himself as well. I laughed as I pulled him into a hug but balked at kissing him and he reached for the wine and drained what was left in the bottle before clearing his throat and grinning at me coyly.

"I've only ever done that once before," he admitted, averting his eyes and beginning to blush and I dragged him back onto the bed and into an even tighter embrace, trying to wrap my mind around this new snippet of information.

I had spoken to him of my own childhood and youth - the years of near starvation with my mother, the day my father died and I discovered what his name was and that I had inherited a small amount of money, enough to afford a place to live whilst my mother died slowly from a cough that just would not clear - and of my forced enlistment in the Great War (I hit the beginning of my conscription period in 1916, which was rather bad timing on my part, I suppose) and the accident during training that had left my shoulder scarred but saved me from the front line. Yet I knew nothing of his beginnings, or why he had left his home when he did.

He was circumcised, which I thought odd for the son of a Catholic mother, and carried the faint cane scars on his back and thighs that marked him out as a man who has once been a very disobedient schoolboy. He had once had a lover but none since moving to Paris some five or six years ago, and he turned deathly pale at the mention of anal intercourse.

I held him until I felt my heart begin to settle back into an easy rhythm and eventually became aware that he was rocking subtly in my arms, trying to relieve his hardness which was pressed between his legs and beginning to throb from the blood pulsing inside it. The thought entered my brain that it would be polite to repay the favour he had given me but found that I could not. Not for lack of love but, I admit, fear of the unknown. Instead I pushed him into the mattress and kissed him with all the passion I could muster, thankful that all I could taste on his lips and tongue was wine and nothing more bitter, and pressed my hand down his torso, feeling him shiver and squirm as my hand wrapped around his length and began to stroke.

I could feel his yielding, the need to be taken and cared for that radiated from him and into me. So often I was the one desperate to be looked after and allowed to submit but that night, no more than six months into our affair, it was his turn and he lifted his hands until they lay above his head on the pillow, a sign of his surrender, writhing under my touch until he came undone with a sharp gasp.

He fell asleep very soon after and I found myself watching him as he slept, my breathing slowing to match his as I wondered at the myriad of facts about him that I was ignorant of. His emotions I could feel as if they were my own, and his surface thoughts - such as his reactions to art, politics, the latest sniping between Breton and Dali - all of that I could read and reflect so quickly that to others we often seemed to be thinking as one. But his memories - those I was not privy to.

He knew mine, could read me faster and more astutely than I could him and knew my every weakness and indulgence and how to exploit it for our mutual pleasure, but he still remained, somehow, a mystery. Until the day I pushed him too much.

It was December of nineteen thirty-two and I was alone in our rooms, attempting to write, though it was not such an easy task when Bauer was absent. He was out, doing the strange array of activities that kept his brain occupied. Among them was a visit to the studio of Pablo Picasso to tidy his studio in his absence and send some incomplete works on to him, for the man was unable to keep the space clean or keep a cleaning woman for more than a month and Victor was apparently a man he had trusted for a number of years, news which amazed me greatly.

Victor was also a frequent visitor to the theaters in our area and rumours abounded as to what he surely got up to, closeted in the dressing rooms of the chorus girls, but they were always closed lipped, unwilling to give up the secret. I trusted him indelibly, knowing that he had no sexual desire for the female form and he eventually told me that he spent the time drawing their portraits for five centime a piece whilst they regaled him with gossip and news - the truth behind his ability to be always up-to-date on who had fallen from favour and who was the height of fashion in art and society in general.

I expected him, on his return, to bring with him food and a cheerful demeanor, for that was usually the case after time spent in the chorus girls' company. On this particular day, however, it was most certainly not the case.

"What does this mean?" he yelled at me from the entranceway, not bothering to even shut the door before he began to shout. "What do you mean by this? What am I to think?"

He was waving a small booklet in front of him, slamming the door and beginning to pace around the room in such a distracted fashion that I rose from the armchair with a great deal of caution, trying to see what he was holding that could cause such distress. And then I saw. It was the published transcripts of the Surrealists' sessions, '_Investigating Sex'_ of which I had been part. But still I did not know why he was in such a state.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked him, my tone immediately defensive. "What are you to think about what?"

He did not answer me straight away but instead came to stand in the centre of our living space, squaring his shoulders and opening the booklet to its last chapter.

"Your words," he said simply but with passion. "Your words, Rosey. My God, your words!"

"You are upset that my words have been published?" I countered, seeing his centre of gravity shift to his left hip, knowing that it meant he was uncomfortable but continuing all the same. "You were pleased not six months ago when my poetry was published. _'My words' _you called them then as well. So why are you now so offended that my words are published for the world to read? I did not believe you capable of jealousy."

He stared at me for too long and I looked into his eyes and saw a deep disappointment, though whether it was aimed at me or himself I could not tell and, instead of responding to me in his own words, he looked down at the page before him and began to read.

"_I like a woman with small buttocks between which the organ can be inserted as easily as into the vagina... I enjoy the tightness... it leaves ones hands free to caress the clitoris_," he recited in a monotone, his cheeks flaming.

"What has that to do with anything?" I reproached but he continued, reading portions of my words in which I spoke of the inadequacy of acts like sodomy, masturbation and fellatio when compared to intercourse with a woman.

"_The point and passion of intercourse is the presence of the woman... All else is inferior..._ Do you really think so little, so basely, of your sexual partners?"

"Shut up!" I cried and he blanched before raising his eyes to mine, the pale blue orbs burning with fire. "I was playing along! Agreeing with them, you fool, so that we can continue to do what we do without suspicion!"

My voice was loud, pitched to intimidate, but he refused to back down and as he stepped toward me, it was I who felt cowed.

"A fool?" he asked me. "I am that, my love. Always. But please do not say that you participated in this vulgarity for my sake. You were petting your own ego and that of Breton's! You slide like a snake around him, perhaps you should slide into his anus!"

"Now who's being vulgar?" I sniped but he shrugged at me as if to say that I should what he so obviously did. "And this has nothing to do with you. I will speak of sex if I please, it is normal to do so and it is the repression of your youth if you think it unseemly. And it is not as if sodomy is a concern of yours. You refuse to engage in it, after all!"

Those words stopped his movement toward me and I immediately regretted them. He was dressed flamboyantly that day and the tailored waist on his trousers and delicately fitted jacket leant him none of the protection that his bulkier suits afforded. He stood before me, thin, young and injured by my careless words and by the words I had been spouting in his presence and in writing for months without a thought that he hated my behaviour for a reason.

He tossed the booklet toward the stove without looking, letting it skitter across the floor and bump against the kitchen cupboard as he looked at me, his eyes delving beneath my skin to my very soul.

"You ask me to give up my body to you," he said softly, "but you do not understand what that means. Because you have no wish to. Even with your lately found ego and confidence and bluster you are still a man built by fear, Gui Rosey. I may be a fool and a madman and a clown, but you... you are becoming as much a zebra as the rest of your herd."

And with that he turned and left the apartment, sweeping out of the room with dignity even though I could feel his heart cracking. I stood, rooted to the floor, watching after him as he disappeared, but not following until I realised that he had not taken his overcoat or gloves with him and that the night was fast descending. And my Bauer felt the cold horribly.

Without a second thought I threw on my own overcoat, scooped up his winter things, and ran from the building, just as rain began to fall apathetically from the sky.


	6. Chapter 6

I searched for several hours with no trace of him that night. It was, at that point in my life, the most fearful I had ever been. Even when I was called to serve my country in war I was not afraid, for then I had had the youthful belief in my own immortality to buoy me up, now I had nothing but regret.

I went first to the Grand Guignol Theatre, then the smaller theaters around it, asking after Monsieur Bauer at stage doors, all the while trying to seem like I was only looking for my friend. But he was not there and the looks I received from the doormen, and later the departing dancing girls, told me that they knew there was more between us than platonic love - and that if I had hurt him in any way I would find myself answerable to them.

I even went to the studio of Picasso, knowing that Victor had a key, but it was locked and dark, and he was not at any of the cafes I knew him to frequent either. I was loathe to ask any of his fellow artists - Bauer had spent several years creating a carefree persona, beyond the foibles of common man, and I did not want to throw that character into doubt if I could help it - but as midnight approached I was fast running out of options.

I had walked from one end of the Pigalle to the other and the rain had turned to an icy sleet that had crept beneath my coat to chill my skin but I could not return to the apartment, not without Victor, even as my fingers grew numb, and so threw myself down dramatically against the central fountain in the Place de Pigalle, wondering what it was I could do, or what I would do if I could not find him.

I fancied I could hear his voice calling out to me through the wind and ice but knew it could not be so and brought my hands to my face in despair, looking, I am sure, like a proper, grief stricken poet if ever there had been one.

At which point, I am happy to recount, I was hit about the head with a carpet bag by a woman covered in so many hats, scarves and coats that I did not recognise her until she began to curse me.

"You lice ridden, flatulence talking, fool of a man!" Violette berated me, pulling me to my feet and dragging me by the arm toward her apartment, yelling at me as she went. "He was ice cold, you know! How could you? You know what he is like! How could you!"

She dragged me through the front door of her building and I was finally able to catch my breath and thaw my mind, Violette's stare holding enough heat and anger to send the cold in my body into retreat.

"You have found Victor?" I asked her desperately, if a touch redundantly, and she nodded curtly before turning and heading for the stairs, not inviting me to follow but not warning me off either, and so I went after her. "Thank you, Violette, thank you. But what is it that I am supposed to know?"

She turned to me on the stair, causing me to lose my balance and wobble two steps below her, looking up into her petite, furious face in search of a clue as to how to fix the trouble I had caused.

"I told you the night I introduced you to him that he is mad. He is an artist, he feels too strongly and remembers too much. He is my friend, Rosey, and I trusted him to you. He loves you and you have left him wanting."

I nodded, not sure what else I could do at that point, and she let out an exhausted sigh as she turned to continue the journey up toward her apartment.

I followed her in silence, trying to organise my thoughts and see where I had gone wrong and finally began to realise that not only had I spoken extensively of my ex-lovers in front of Bauer, but I had boasted my experience in front of him as well, and he had borne it because there was nothing else to be done.

More than that, I had spoken carelessly, heartlessly, of the women I had bedded, and several of those women, as artists' models, were Bauer's friends. It must have hurt him deeply to hear them spoken of in such terms, and to fear that I might at some point speak of him in a similar manner. It was a terrible self-revelation, to realise how callous I had been, but a necessary one.

"Is he alright?" I asked Violette as we crossed the landing to her door and she looked back at me with more sympathy than I probably deserved.

"I went out for vodka," she told me, "because he needed something to settle his nerves and take the chill from his bones and we had run out of champagne and rum."

This was not the answer I had been hoping for, was barely an answer at all, but I pushed down my frustration, and my wet hair from my face, and followed her into the tiny apartment she shared with three other 'ladies of discernment'.

They ceased their conversation when I entered, looking up as one, their bodies still and their eyes sharp as they reclined about the cramped space, like a family of cats, I thought warily, and in the centre, under their protection and care was (though he would hate to be described as such) their kitten.

He alone seemed unaware that there was an intrusion into his private word, sitting upon a threadbare chaise with a patchwork blanket over his legs and another around his shoulders, humming quietly as he scribbled on a piece of paper, his high cheekbones flushed pink from drink and the warmth of the stove at his feet. My Bauer. My Victor. I tried to go to him but Violette caught my arm and shook her head, and I watched as she approached silently, pulling a bottle of cherry brandy from her bag along with the vodka as she stepped over the legs of her housemates carefully, like a hunter stalking a deer.

"I am back, my sweet," she said in a gentle tone, and I watched as his eyes rose slowly to meet hers, unfocused and childishly uncertain. "I brought you some Eau de vie."

She lifted the bottle for his attention and he smiled sleepily at it, but after a moment his eyes shifted from the alcohol to where I waited anxiously by the door. And those eyes - those crystal, clear sky eyes - focused on me, became instantly sharp and wide at the sight of me.

"My Rosey." The words slipped from his lips like champagne, light and bubbling, and he sprang from the chaise, tripping in his haste to reach me with a wan smile flittering about his lips. "My Rosey."

I tried to speak, but my tongue was sluggish in my mouth and I settled for bringing one hand forward to caress the warm, soft skin of his face, tucking a damp tendril of hair behind the delicate shell of his ear. Across my other arm I still carried his overcoat, gloves and scarf, which were by now thoroughly drenched, and therefore useless, but I held them out to him all the same.

"I brought you your coat," I managed to explain on my third attempt. "I did not want you to be cold."

His face split into a proper grin at that and he took the sodden items from me reverently before handing them to a confused (and disgruntled) Violette.

"Oh, my Rosey!" he whispered, placing his hand over my cold one as it caressed his cheek. "I am sorry. What must you think of me?"

"I think that I hurt you," I replied. "And I am the one who is sorry, my Bauer. I have been a fool, worse, I have been an arse. Can you forgive me?"

He responded by rising up onto his toes and kissing me on the lips chastely, an act which shocked me for the forgiveness and affection inherent in it and because it was done in front of four witnesses. I hesitated in returning the kiss for a bare second before I realised that such hesitancy was what had been eating at Bauer since our relationship began. For all his talk of not wishing to be known as a homosexual man, for all his understanding of the dangers and the need to be circumspect, for all of that, pretending that we were not romantically linked had been eating at him, destroying his joy and hurting his spirit.

It was that knowledge which freed me to kiss him properly, drawing him closer to me in relief and love as his tongue delved into my mouth - which I very nearly choked upon when one of Violette's friends whistled at us and another began to clap.

I felt myself begin to blush and when Bauer ended the kiss I worried that he felt ashamed of our display and so was flooded with relief when he looked up at me with his madman's grin firmly in place before turning to the women with a flourish and a bow, which lead to more clapping and laughter.

"They know?" I whispered questioningly into his ear.

"Of course they know, they're not idiots," replied, kissing my cheek.

"None of my friends suspect," I reminded him but that simply made him laugh, low and mischievous.

"True. Because _they_ are idiots," and at that it was my turn to laugh, the relief and tension escaping with the amusement as I did.

Violette was still eyeing me suspiciously, but she took Bauer's shift in mood as a good sign and began to fill glasses with cherry brandy as Bauer spun back to me for another kiss, pressing himself against me before squawking as the rainwater from my clothes seeped into his shirt. He tugged me toward the chaise and sat me by the stove, pressing me down against the worn upholstery and fussing as he removed my coat, jacket, scarf and gloves. The women continued to chuckle as they watched him coo over me and I felt unsettled, both by their amusement and because I had not expected to be treated with such immediate affection.

For the next hour he refused to behave as if anything untoward had happened, drinking enough to make himself giddy as he gossiped with his friends, talking to one of the women at length in Bavarian - but he held my hand firmly all that while, his body pressed to mine and his grip tight - until one by one the women declared the hour late and drifted toward the bedroom. Due to the continued rain, and the lateness of the hour, we were ordered to stay and given blankets and pillows to make up a bed on the floor and, when Victor finally released my hand in order to use the toilette, Violette descended upon me like an anxious, and fearsome, mother.

"Do not be fooled by his cheerfulness, Gui," she hissed at me as Victor left the room, clutching at my sleeve to ensure she had my full attention. "He is not as content as he seems."

I frowned at her, though I had suspected the same, but, in my ignorance, did not consider the words of a woman with little education to be of much worth.

"He is changeable," I reassured her. "He cycles through moods but knows the trick of rescuing himself from them. I have, as you pointed out, left him wanting, but it shall not happen again, and he will be fine."

"No," she told me sharply. "It is not as simple as that, Rosey, it goes deeper. He saw a doctor when he first came to Paris but, to be honest, the man was his inferior, intellectually. He did not understand Victor and so Victor left and refused to see him again. I barely know what is within his heart and mind but I know that he needs a great deal more support than he has ever been given, or has ever been willing to allow. But he is allowing _you_," she said, poking me in the chest for emphasis. "And _you_ must take better care of him."

"I will," I promised, and it was very truly my intention but she still seemed wary.

"I have met, you know," she told me in a lighter tone, "many people during my life. I have met one whose body was that of a man but whose head and heart were that of a woman. I have met one who had the body of a woman but who was a man in every other respect, and lived as such. But your Bauer..." she paused and I smiled to hear her refer to him as mine. "He is different. His heart, his mind, his body, his everything - it is both man and woman, don't you think? And it is beautiful - for those of us who behold it, it is beautiful - but it is hard for him. You must love with care. And you must be kind."

She kissed my cheek then, pulling me down so that she could reach without having to strain her neck, then walked in her delicate way toward the bedroom she shared with her fellow models, bidding me sweet dreams over her shoulder.

I set about creating a comfortable space for Victor and myself on the rug, building a nest of pillows and blankets that I hoped would be enough to ensure us a few hours sleep and when Bauer returned he smiled at my creation and all but skipped to it, wrapping his arms about my neck and pulling me down to the floor and into a passion filled kiss. There was a melancholy about the movement of his lips, even as he poured love into the action, there was an underlying sadness that felt to me like a knife in my heart. Despite his giddy happiness and smiles, my Victor was hurting, and I had been the cause.

We had already removed all but our trousers and shirt-sleeves over the course of the evening and so we tumbled into our makeshift bed just as we were, kissing clumsily as I pulled the blankets over us both, cocooning us in the dark together, warm and safe and separated from the world of reality. We continued to kiss, hands roving over bodies and inside of shirts to skim across warm skin, but we were both exhausted, and Bauer quite inebriated, and so the kisses were an end in themselves rather than a stepping stone to anything else. Eventually our tongues became sluggish and open-mouthed kisses became simply open mouths, sharing breath and faint, drowsy smiles, until Victor rested his head against my shoulder and was asleep.

I knew that the new day would bring with it many questions and discussions as to how we could have a relationship that was both covert and fulfilling, but the main occupation of my mind was the relief at having found my Victor again and that I needed to do whatever was necessary to keep him, and the special bond between us, safe.


	7. Chapter 7

I woke to the swipe of lips against mine, my back spasming against the hard floor, but the mouth upon mine warm and soft as the grey morning sunlight filtered through my eyelids.

"My Rosey," he mumbled against my lips in a singsong voice. "Rise and shine, Rosey."

I opened my eyes unwillingly, hating the grit and scratch of my eyelids after so little rest but, when the first few, blurred moments passed, I looked up into the face of the one I loved and my body flushed with relief and love.

"I love you," he said sweetly. "I love you, my Rosey. My poet, my strange one."

I let the words sink in, enjoying the contours of his face - one cheek pale and the other red from where it had been pressed against my shoulder for most of the night - and his eyes still half-lidded from sleep.

"You call me the strange one?"

"Very much so," he said nodding seriously. "You went out in a rain storm to search for me. You are the strangest man I know."

He gave his most dazzling grin and I had to smile back, even as my heart was pulled taut by the sadness already seeping up within me, a recipe of emotions that I could sense but not make sense of - which was as frustrating as it was heartrending. I was supposed to be a poet, and ten years his senior, but I could not put words to what I knew he was feeling, could not properly comprehend his struggle or what I was supposed to do to help him, but I knew I had to try.

"You cannot simply smile at me and pretend there's nothing wrong, you know," I told him, and he pursed his lips in a thin, pale line, staring at me long and hard.

His hair fell about his face in loose waves as he leaned over me, the longest locks brushing against his bare shoulders, and I realised that he must have removed his shirt during the night, a strange action which left him exposed and shivering, and which meant that I could not help but pull him toward me, wrapping him back into the blankets and my tight embrace, though he cackled and shrieked at being held so fiercely.

"You will catch your death," I growled into his ear, kissing along his jaw without a thought for our location on the floor of Violette's apartment. "You shall die of a cold and then what shall I do? How shall I survive without you, grieving yet knowing that your demise could have been avoided if you had just kept your clothes on for a change."

His giggling was delirious by that point and he gasped desperately that he could not help it, that he always slept nude, as I well knew, and that it was my fault for radiating too much heat and sleeping too close. I continued to kiss and tickle his skin until we both froze at the sound of a door creaking open.

"It is only me," Violette said drolly. "The others are sleeping late, they have work in the evening. I have to go and sit for Monsieur Arp," she sighed. "The man is so tedious, but he likes my breasts. No doubt I shall end up as another headless sculpture, an idol for the male gaze. But at least he pays well."

Bauer sat up as she spoke, grinning at her description but obviously interested in the man she was talking of.

"Jean Arp?" he asked her, kneeling up in our nest of blankets, his thin torso pale in the grey of the winter morning. "How can he be tedious, he is a great artist. He has redefined abstract art, _and_ he told Breton where he could shove his paint brushes not two years ago."

Violette's lips twitched upwards as she took in his eagerness and bare chest and I could see quite clearly in the morning light that she felt, for my Bauer, a great deal of love.

"Would you like an introduction then?" she asked, watching as he began to practically bounce with excitement, his eyes wide and sparkling.

"Would you?"

"I will ask," she told him, trying to keep her expression sensible and not give in to his contagious enthusiasm. "He may say no. He does not like the Surrealists. He hates Breton."

Bauer simply shrugged and climbed trippingly to his feet to take her hands in his and place a delicate kiss upon her knuckles.

"Then we shall have something in common," he whispered conspiratorially, at which Violette did smile, swatting him away and shaking her head, promising to ask Arp if he would be happy to receive a visit from an admiring artist as she threw on her coat and hat and made her way out of the flat.

When she was gone Victor returned to our makeshift bed excitedly and finally agreed to put on the shirt that I held out to him, babbling about the changing directions within the world of abstract art, and the new life that artists like Arp were breathing into the medium of sculpture.

"If you really hate Breton, why do you stay with the Surrealists?" I asked him when he finally paused for breath, and he shrugged his shoulder delicately before leaning over me and pressing a firm kiss to my forehead.

"Because they are more exciting," he said plainly. "And because my politics, in terms of the dangers inherent in the rise of fascism, align more with theirs. Because surrealism was founded on the belief that human imagination is a powerful force that needs to be unlocked, to be freed. Surrealism is about freedom from taboos through the unfettering of the imagination, of fantasy, artistry, creativity, and I live in hope that one day it will be just that! And because," he said, taking a deep breath to calm himself then dipping down to kiss my lips, slow and wet and full of promise, "they serve far superior wine at their parties."

I laughed, his face still no more than a breath away from mine, and he answered with a quick kiss to my nose before sitting upright again and beginning to button his shirt.

"And, yes, I can," he told me when he had finished with his shirt and retrieved his waistcoat from the arm of the chaise.

"Can what?" I asked in confusion, trying to find the connection in our conversation that would lead to such a statement.

"Yes, I can just smile at you and pretend that nothing is wrong," he said, smirking down at me. "And not only that. I can make you believe it too."

The walk back to our own apartment was a silent one, but not uncomfortably so, and once the door was shut and bolted behind us I took him in my arms and kissed him with more passion than I realised I was capable of. It felt utterly incredible to feel his body melt against mine, soft and yielding save for the one part of him that was decidedly male, and suddenly hard and hot and demanding.

I lifted his legs until they were wrapped about my waist, Bauer, as always, understanding what I needed from him, and carried him to our bed, trying to kiss him as I did so, even though it meant stumbling over the multitudinous piles of books (which took up nearly twice as much space in our tiny home since I had moved mine in with his) until we hit the bed and fell together.

The room was freezing, so cold that our mingled breath came out as harsh clouds of steam as we panted against each others lips, shivering yet struggling to remove clothing out of a desperate need to be as close as humanly possible.

I sat above him, straddling his hips and struggling to remain grounded and present despite the fact that his erection was pressed into the sensitive flesh behind my testes. I swallowed a moan as he bucked up in to me, closing my eyes tight as my head began to spin.

"Stay with me, Rosey," he whispered raggedly as his nimble fingers unbuttoned my waistcoat and shirt, pushing them from my shoulders whilst his hips maintained their rocking rhythm into my most sensitive of parts. "Please, Rosey. Stay. I do know how you feel, I do feel it as you do, even though it paralyses me with fear and pulls at my stomach. Please-" he gasped as the head of his penis pushed against my crotch, his hand resting on my erection, where he had been busily pulling at my flies, and the moan I had been holding back escaped from within me, vibrating in the still air, my body balanced on the precipice of orgasm.

"Rosey," he whimpered, moving his fingers deftly past my trousers until they wrapped firmly around my aching member. "My Rosey. Please stay."

"I- I'm not going anywhere," I panted, my fingers cramping as I clutched at my thighs, fighting desperately against my imminent release.

"But where is your mind?" Victor murmured. "Open your eyes for me, Rosey?"

I obeyed, even though forcing my lids apart was, in that moment, one of most difficult challenges I could imagine, and saw him smile, his own eyes barely open but focussed on me. His chest was heaving, exposed to the cold again but this time flushed red with arousal, and his hand began to move swiftly in time with the thrusting of his still-clothed hips until I came undone with a shudder, my release spilling over his hand and abdomen, his movements continuing until I whimpered at the overstimulation.

He stilled his hips reluctantly, removing his hand from my open trousers to clutch at the bedding, his intense arousal making him twitch and fidget, his eyes fixed hazily on my face but barely seeing me now. I moved down his legs, pulling his trousers with me until he was naked and spread out on the bed, the very image of wantonness with his louche pose and his belly smeared with my seed. It caused a secondary bolt of desire to shoot through me but my body was still too shaken and drained to respond, and I had other ideas in mind.

"Rosey?" he begged, his words slurring with arousal.

I gave him no chance to continue his question, pressing my tongue flat against the skin of his shin and licking upwards until I had reached the top of his thigh. He gasped and his body shook, his hands tightening in the bedclothes as I removed my tongue and repeated the action on his other leg, only this time I did not stop when I reached his thigh. I did not allow myself a moment to worry before dragging my tongue over his scrotum, his testes already tight to his body in anticipation of his orgasm. He let out a choked cry which became a series of cries and gasps as I licked my way to the head of his penis to lap at the tip, tasting him and teasing him until he began to whimper and turn his head from side to side on the pillows deliriously.

It is a strange thing, to recount one's first experience performing fellatio, but I am past apologising for this memoir. You may skip over these parts if you prefer but now that I have begun to tell this story, I feel compelled to recount it in full, and this moment, the moment when I took my lover's erection into my mouth for the first time... it felt like I was finally coming of age, realising that there was something better than pleasing myself - and that that something was pleasing him.

I opened my mouth, covering my teeth with my lips as I lowered myself down as far as I could manage. His pubic hair was short and wiry and I ran my fingers through it as I began to move my head, slipping his erection in and out of my mouth slowly and teasingly until he whimpered and grabbed at my hair, thrusting into my mouth feverishly, muttering my name among words I did not understand the meaning of.

I relaxed my jaw as much as I could to allow him to thrust into me, the experience far more erotic that I had ever imagined until suddenly he froze, his back arching before he gave another sobbing cry and flooded my mouth with his release, his member pulsing against my tongue in a way that I decided I very much liked.

His whimper when I let his spent penis slip from my mouth was much softer, a small and vulnerable noise that made me want to take him into my arms and hold him to my chest, but I had a problem. Bauer had taken to swallowing when he took me in his mouth but I had held the salty liquid in my mouth too long to feel comfortable with ingesting it and so sat at the end of the bed, watching as he tried to recover himself, with my mouth clamped tightly shut and my nostrils flared wide.

When it became apparent that he would need at least a minute more to recover himself I slipped off the bed and pulled a handkerchief from my jacket pocket, depositing his semen into it and grimacing at the odd sensation of the liquid, warm and thick, leaving my mouth.

I am proud to report that I did overcome my prudishness in this area quite quickly, but that first, awkward occasion still burns in my mind, and stands as a testament to how ill I understood my own sexuality and what I was expecting from Bauer. I rinsed my mouth with a bottle of rough spirits that I found in the cupboard, gulping and spitting into the sink a few times before swallowing a good measure and heading back toward the bed where Victor had only just begun to open his eyes and breathe regularly.

I realised, as I sat down beside his prone form, that drinking straight spirits before I had even broken my morning fast was perhaps not the most sensible thing to do and I blinked as my head began to spin dizzyingly. I ran my hand over Bauer's pale ribs and felt him shiver at my touch but he did not move to cover himself. Instead he stretched his limbs and spine like a sated kitten and grinned up at me lazily.

"I love you," he told me simply, staring into my eyes and, I am sure, reading my fear and apprehension along with my desire and affection.  
"And I you," I told him. "I only wish I knew how to be what you need."

He nodded at that, acknowledging that I had failed him but not holding it against me or holding on to the pain he had felt at reading my ill-thought words, a forgiveness that was far greater than I deserved.

In response I rose unsteadily and walked to the stove, lighting it clumsily and burning my finger, which made Bauer laugh - because burning fingers on our uncooperative stove was his signature move, not mine. I retrieved the booklet from where it had been flung the day before, not wishing to look at my words, or my name on the cover, and flung it into the stove.

I heard Bauer gasp and by the time I stood, holding onto the stove top for balance, he was behind me, wrapping his arms around my middle, pressing his body to mine and hard kisses to the skin between my shoulder blades. He kept up the kisses as the stove slowly warmed the room, moving his hands over my body and removing my trousers and underwear as he did so, until I felt his hardness against the crease of my thighs and my own body responded in kind.

He dragged me back to the bed and pushed me into the mattress and proceeded to kiss the entire length and breadth of my body before slicking us both in olive oil and taking us in one of his small but powerful hands.

And when we both finally recovered we gathered bread, cheese, wine, pencils and paper, pulled the covers up about ourselves, and began to formulate the plan that would allow us to be together in the manner that we needed without raising the suspicion or ire of those around us.


	8. Chapter 8

I must say, dear child, that I am starting to believe that I have never written something so greatly anticipated as these letters to you. When I gave you those pages last night I did not expect to be greeted by you so early this morning, with said pages already consumed and a pot of coffee held out to me like an offering to the gods of story telling. I shall write you more shortly (do not fear, you shall know the story in full) but you should not be neglecting your own studies in favour of my words. You will receive the next chapter of my life only when I have seen your days' work. You may read this first paragraph alone and no more until I have read over the fruits of your own mind's exercise today. Only then will I permit you to know of our idea, the grand scheme, that allowed us to play Bauer's game of lies on a larger scale than we had ever attempted before.

The idea began simply enough. We wanted to be able to touch one another in public without fear and so we developed the idea of becoming a living, moving, art instillation. I was a poet - my spoken words are my art - and Bauer had only that morning been expressing to me his love of abstract sculpture and three dimensional art of that kind, and so we came to see that we might be able to turn ourselves into an extension of our art.

We could already finish one another's sentences, our bodies mirrored one another's, it did not seem so difficult to take such behaviour further. And so, whilst the rain and sleet pounded against our windows and great winds howled through the streets of Paris, we spent the week charting and designing a plan of action complete with rules, boundaries, safe words, warning words and signals we could make if a swift exit needed to be made or we could not finish a sentence.

Bauer went through every article of clothing we both owned and pieced together a series of not quite matching, but complimenting, outfits for us to wear and I encouraged him to start adding a few of his preferred items as well. He looked ridiculous in men's trousers, they did not sit well on his frame, and I argued that it was a more striking image if we accentuated his unique figure. He argued that it would make us appear like a parody of a heterosexual couple and so I agreed to adopt a few more fitted items into my own wardrobe, that we might both appear confusing, or androgynous, to those who saw us.

And so Bauer set about taking in my waistcoats and I drafted a short thesis statement that we could use to explain our art piece to those we encountered. And we rehearsed. Victor was an amazing improvisor, creating stories in moments that I could not have planned out even with a pencil, paper and several hours of thought, but there were things that we needed to plan and practice and that is what we did, again and again until, at the week's end, I found myself standing before the mirror, with Bauer by my side, our hair slicked back, our suits in matching shades of blue, our hands clasped stylistically in a way that wasn't particularly natural but was obvious and artistic, and our faces coolly composed. I gave his hand three, quick squeezes _\- I. love. you. -_ and saw his reflection in the mirror smile as he squeezed my hand in return _\- yes. yes. - I. love. you. -_ and suddenly I felt invincible. We were due at the house of Peret that night and it was to be, if all went according to plan, the unveiling of our lives as art entitled, _'Twinhood: or The Found Remembrance of Spiritual Love'_, the greatest lie Bauer had ever composed.

We had chosen that title because it invoked the closest possible bond, which allowed us to be as intimate as we liked (within reason, obviously) whilst suggesting that the relationship was not actually carnal. Our performance was to focus on our spiritual bond rather than a sexual or physical one, and that was to be the trick, if we could play our parts convincingly enough.

I did not worry for Bauer, knowing that he would be able to carry off the part and that our physical closeness would buoy him further, but I was anxious for myself. We were going in to a familiar environment and we would know almost all of the people in attendance at the party, but somehow that made it worse, rather than better. These were people who thought they knew me, which made me vulnerable to them, but I was determined to do Victor proud. It was not only he who craved physical touch, or to be allowed to acknowledge our relationship, I craved it too, and this was the way we would be able to achieve it, at least in part.

So, forth we went, palm to palm, into the cold night, each of us shivering with nerves and anticipation, to begin the game.

The door, when we arrived, was answered by Peret's man, whose eyes flickered to our joined hands only briefly before he walked us through to the main part of the rich apartment, and we were greeted by the man himself.

"But what is this?" Peret exclaimed upon seeing us, and I must admit that our appearance was striking.

Bauer had tailored my clothes until I appeared to have a much younger figure than in reality and his own shape was on display beautifully in his flowing trousers and fitted waistcoat. We wore matching expressions of aloofness and I allowed Bauer to precede me into the room, swinging his arm around ever so slightly as if to present me to the crowd that had turned to watch our entrance. I saw, in one of the mirrors that lined the walls, that Victor had tilted his head in a manner that accentuated his cheekbones and long eyelashes and then realised that I had subconsciously mirrored the action and that our tableau was more than striking, it was beautiful.

"Why this is art!" Dali proclaimed, stepping forward and twiddling his moustache in delight and I saw Victor incline his head toward the man, for if anyone knew about making one's entire life an act of art, it was Salvador Dali.

Peret began to clap and soon the whole room had applauded and we were making introductions and displaying our gift of synchronization for the Surrealists, who were, to a man, impressed by our efforts. We spent the evening making rounds of the party, soaking up the adoration of the artists and art lovers alike and catching snippets of their conversations and comments.

It was a strange side effect, but our act seemed to make people believe that we could not hear them. I think perhaps it was the fact that we seemed so insulated and enveloped within one another's presence. That was, of course, not actually part of the act. Holding hands in public with Bauer - walking about in the sight of so many people with my fingers intertwined with his and our gaze so often locked upon one another - it was intoxicating and it made us both behave as if we were truly invincible, safe in our own shell.

And so we heard snippets of conversation as we walked about the room, and what we heard was thoroughly entertaining. From the men we heard such mutterings as:

"... fought in the war, you know..."

"... Is it true that they are brothers, then?"

"Yes! Twins who found each other by chance during the war..."

"... is it real or is it artifice?"

"With Victor Bauer who knows..."

And from the women something entirely different:

"... There is something most alluring about them, don't you think?"

"Indeed. The chemistry is palpable..."

"...the way they hold their hands. Is that friendship?..."

"... if it is all an act, just an art instillation, or whatever Dali called it, I don't wish to know. The image they make together is stunning..."

"...there is such emotion, such feeling in the two of them. It is... captivating."

At one point I felt the laughter bubbling up within me until I could barely keep my face impassive and squeezed Bauer's hand hard for a count of four - _help._ \- He moved, as if dancing, to stroke his free hand down my chest to my heart in response. It immediately calmed my urge to laugh but made me horribly aware that we were being watched, and that several of the women watching us were doing so hungrily.

Victor's face, when he looked up at me, was calm and steady - a porcelain mask of unbroken beauty - but his eyes were wild. His pupils were large, almost overpowering the pale blue-green of his irises and held the sort of promises that made me shiver in spite of the warmth of the room. I could see his excitement, the way he was feeding on the attention and intrigue we were causing, and when Breton approached us I prepared myself to put on a show that would make my Bauer proud.

"Monsieur Rosey, Monsieur Bauer," he greeted us, a smile fluttering restlessly across his face. "And what are we all to make of this fine display, hmm? You must explain it to me in full, I insist. I cannot be left without an explanation, it is my way, I must know all, and you have presented me with a mystery. Explain."

Inwardly I was grinning like a madman at the knowledge that Andre Breton was brimming with curiosity on our account, but I kept my face neutral and tapped my thumb against Victor's questioningly - _begin?_ \- and he squeezed my hand twice - _yes. yes. _\- in reply. This was it. If we could convince Breton of our bizarre performance there would be few from among the Surrealists who would dare to question us.

"It is-"

"-quite simply-"

"-a new expression of-"

"-the Surrealist pursuit-"

"-of life as art,-"

"-of the free inner will, and-"

"-the soul's yearning for-"

"-a spiritual mate-"

"-and completion."

"It is art, as is-"

"-obvious to any with-"

"-eyes to see."

"It is-"

"-Twinhood, or-"

"-the found remembrance-"

"-of spiritual-"

"-love."

We each took a deep breath, perfectly in sync, and pride fluttered in my chest as Breton stood before us, trying to decide what his verdict upon us would be. The evident chemistry between us was obviously causing him some discomfort, our bodies angled inwards and fingers so intimately entwined, but, despite his manifold failings, Breton was an idealist at heart and the idea of brotherly love and devotion in a world that had rejected such emotions in favour of cold separatism and individualism, appealed to him greatly and eventually he nodded. By the end of the night he was expounding a novel's worth of commentary to an avid following about the genius of the the living art that was _'Twinhood'_ and I could feel the glee radiating from Victor at our success.

Our success increased with each outing, and in the same measure I saw Bauer's confidence as a person increase through the contact of our bodies, hearts and minds, and the chance to live more freely as himself. Each performance left us both exhilarated and thrumming with adrenaline and our lovemaking when under the influence of those chemicals and emotions was truly a spiritual experience, teasing one another to new heights of ecstasy (though we never overstepped the unspoken limits Victor had placed upon our physical relationship).

When we met resistance, phobia and hatred we were able to laugh in its face and exclaim: but it is art! Everyone wanted to be in on the secret, to understand what was art, and to be one of the Surrealists. It became like a giant game of Emperor's New Clothes, and we reveled in it.

This is not to say that our lives were perfect, but it was as close, I think, as I have ever come.

Each week Bauer discovered a new young artist with incredible potential who only needed to be nudged in the right direction - and who made him stare disconsolately at his own work and sigh at every attempt to paint because he did not have the classical talent of so many of the surrealist artists. His forte was in the abstract, exercises in colour and shape and emotion, but he could never see his own genius.

Violette was good to her word and through her Victor met and began to be guided by Jean Arp, which increased his confidence as an artist as well as his technique, and he enjoyed significant success when several of his pieces were displayed alongside Arp's in an exhibition dedicated to the new wave of abstract art, but he could never comprehend that people appreciated his work for what it was, was never satisfied, and his self-deprecation was sometimes painful to watch.

I too suffered doubt with regards to my talent and struggled to get my work published in any circumstance outside of Breton's direct intervention, which rankled. I often worried over how little money we made. Most of our food was sold to us heavily discounted thanks to Victor's charm and contacts, but that winter of nineteen thirty-three was a cold and sparse one.

Despite all of that, I woke up smiling each day. I wrote and wrote and wrote, ideas spilling from my mind, overflowing from my brain in a typhoon of imagination and inspiration and, when my second book of poems was finally published, it was praised even beyond our surrealist circle.

Still, books of poetry, and paintings sold at 'friends prices', have never lead to fame and fortune, and I worried over how thin Bauer got from time to time. At times there was a soft curve to his waist, like the perfect hourglass, and at others there was little to hide the bones of his pelvis which left bruises on my thighs and hips and which he knocked against furniture and easels, bruising himself when he walked about our rooms naked (which was surprisingly often when he was absorbed with his work). When I could number his ribs I always made certain to ask Violette and her friends to ensure he ate when he was with them.

A measure of our financial insecurity eased when we discovered that there were those among the social elite - vapid and near intolerable as they were - who were willing to pay a fee to have us attend their parties, as a work of art. (Which just goes to show you, my young friend, that fools will throw money at anything if you call it 'art' or 'fashion'. A lesson to keep in mind as you soldier forth into the callous world of literary art: confuse them whilst treating them like one of the chosen few who truly grasp the Truth, and they will throw cash at you. If they are the right sort of fool.)

Several of them were ladies who had 'known' me before I began my life with Bauer and at first I was nervous about divulging such information to him, but instead of being upset or distressed by the fact that the women who had once paid for my services in their bed were now paying for my services as living art - with Bauer at my side - he laughed. He was aware of how attractive women found us when we dressed to match and stood so close to one another, and he found it exceedingly funny.

He even spoke of it in bed, of what those women wanted from us, what they imagined us to get up to in private, what they wished they could do if we were in their bed and under their command. He was a master at weaving pictures with his words and could set my body ablaze before he had even touched my skin, simply through his words. And how I loved him for it.

So we became a success after a fashion, simply by displaying our bond as though it were a parlour trick or piece of theatre, whilst in private our true relationship bloomed. There were hiccups of course, as must be expected, such as my anxiety when faced with too many strangers staring (which either made me overly subdued or ridiculously verbose) and Bauer's tendency toward mania if forced to dress and behave in too masculine a manner for too many hours (which led to temper tantrums, midnight wanderings and the occasional rant from atop a table in our favourite cafe or club), but we learnt to cope, and to support one another through any fear and discomfort.

We spoke little of my sexual desires - one of the few things we did not discuss in depth - and I feared to bring it back into our conversation, not wishing to send my love into another panic even though I still longed to deepen our sexual bond.

We did make love, by frottage or hands on one another's bodies, and Victor became somewhat of an expert in the art of fellatio, grinning like a proud school boy when he was able to unravel me so thoroughly with his tongue and lips and teeth and throat so that I was left unable to breathe and unsure of my own name. I reciprocated, and though my attempts were not as skilled as his, he never complained, and I found great joy in submitting to him in such a way and letting him use my mouth as he wished for his pleasure.

We did not take things further than that, but still I thought about it. Victor had showed me what intimacy could feel like and I wished to be joined with him, my Bauer, in the most intimate way possible. But we did not speak of it.

Still, I was happy, and I look back on the year of nineteen thirty-three as a golden year, a year when we loved freely, laughed deeply, and very nearly forgot that the world around us was not as peaceful or happy as we had become. Then nineteen thirty-four announced itself, and we saw more clearly the storm that was brewing on the horizon.


	9. Chapter 9

It was the twenty-second of February, a Thursday, and Victor and I had spent the morning pottering around our room, drinking coffee and kissing and not much else. I was dressed in my oldest pair of trousers and my dressing gown, both of which were stained with ink and paint, and Bauer was dressed only in his silken robe, which provided little warmth on its own but ensured that I could barely keep my hands to myself, and kept him warm with near constant hugs and the friction of my palms against his skin.

It may seem strange that I remember the date so exactly but February of nineteen thirty-four had been eventful to say the least and I had been attempting that day to keep Bauer from heading out into the streets in search of trouble. It had been only two weeks since Paris had been rocked by an attempted fascist coup d'etat and there was still great unrest, not to mention the fact that extreme right-wing groups were beginning to emerge and Bauer was known as an outspoken objector. I did not want him out of my sight when passions were running so wild.

As if the trouble on our doorstep was not enough, the week of the twelfth had brought the first news of the civil war in Austria as well. I did not know how Bauer would react to the developments in the country of his birth but knew that whatever his opinions would be, they would be strong and probably upsetting for him, and I was right, after a fashion. But when he had picked up the news sheets that week and read that the Austrofascists were overthrowing the government there had been no angry ranting or lectures on politics or socialism. Bauer had pursed his lips and looked very serious, and then refused to discuss the issue with me or anyone else. He read any news bulletin he could get his hands on that pertained to the crisis, but he would not speak of it, and so I had resolved to give him a day of rest, without news papers or civil unrest or politics. But it was not to be.

I had just pulled him down into my lap with a kiss, the two of us slipping and tousling in the armchair as my hand snaked beneath the flimsy fabric of his robe to stroke the length of his thigh and up toward his already semi-erect member, when there was a powerful banging upon our door.

Victor squealed and fell from my lap in a flurry of limbs and turquoise silk, which would have been amusing except that the knocking came again, and he scurried to hide in the bedroom while I crossed to the door, willing my arousal to diminish before I had to face who ever was attempting to destroy our front door.

A concerned-looking Violette was not who I had been expecting but it was she who was there when I opened the door, accompanied by one of her fellow models, a young woman named Jana, who I knew Victor enjoyed speaking with but did not know myself, and I ushered them in quickly, calling out to Victor that he should stop hiding as I did so.

When Victor emerged, dressed in a pair of my trousers and braces and nothing else, I very nearly laughed at the fact that he had donned those clothes to appear _less_ suspect to whoever might be knocking on our door, but I did not have a chance to tell him that he looked both ridiculous and adorable because Jana, at the sight of him, had burst into tears. She ran to him, speaking hurriedly in Bavarian and falling against his chest so that he was forced to hold her up and guide her to sit in our apartment's solitary armchair.

He spoke to her, words I did not understand but in a tone which was calm and soft and which I knew well, but she continued to sob, becoming almost hysterical as she tried to explain herself to him, before finally producing a letter from her coat pocket and pushing it into Victor's hand.

I turned to Violette but found her already in the kitchen, setting a pot of coffee to boil and slicing what was left of our bread for toasting. Her eyes held deep disquiet but she shook her head at me in silent answer to the question I had not asked - she did not know what they were speaking of either.

"Babba?" Victor suddenly yelled, angrily, and we turned to see him shake his head furiously at Jana who was still urging him to read the letter in his hand. "Ned babba! Babba neamd!"

"Aber-"

"Neamd!"

I watched as he stumbled backwards and Jana stood, she now attempting to calm him, speaking low and fast in a language that had suddenly cut me off from the man who was half of myself. He was trembling and breathing harshly through his nose, his face pale against the curtain of his dark hair as he listened to the foreign words Jana whispered to him urgently until finally he opened the letter and looked at whatever words were written there before crumpling to the floor with a sob and a single word.

"Muadda."

At that I suddenly felt I could move again, freed from the stasis that had held me whilst Victor had been speaking his native tongue. Jana was trying to comfort him, crying again herself, but I nudged her aside in order to lift Victor into my arms and carry him to our bed, lying him gently down and gathering the strewn bedclothes up and over him, trying to stop the intense shivering that had taken over his body.

I could hear Violette trying to calm Jana and even though they were now speaking French I could not understand what they were saying. They were background noise and unintelligible to me whilst I dealt with my lover's pain. And he was very clearly in pain. No sound left his mouth but there were tears leaking from his eyes and his skin had turned waxy and feverish, and the letter, open now, was still clutched in his hand.

I wanted to comfort him, more than anything in the world, but aside from brushing my fingers carefully through his hair and sitting with him, I did not know what else to do. I did not even understand what had caused his sudden collapse and wracked my brain to try and untangle the mystery, taking the letter from his hand even though I knew I would not be able to read its contents and wondered how staring at the cryptic words could possibly help.

I was wrong however, as the letter contained only a short paragraph at the top of the page, addressed to Jana, followed by a long list of names. I stared at them blankly for a moment before beginning to scan the lists for something I might recognise and felt the blood drain from my face when I stumbled upon a name that I knew well: Bauer.

_Bauer, Otto (p)_

_Bauer, Catherine (d)_

"Victor?" I whispered, but he grabbed my hand, holding tight and asking me in that action not to talk, but simply to be with him.

I nodded, glancing over to when Jana and Violette had made themselves comfortable on the floor by the armchair, speaking softly and crying together in the way women seem to be able to do but that men so rarely have the courage for. Seeing that they were relatively settled I climbed into the bed beside Bauer, pulling his shivering body close to mine, his back to my chest and my hand over his heart, listening to Violette's murmured reassurances and my Bauer's quiet sobbing.

As the minutes passed the sobs became louder until, after a time, Victor was crying properly and the tension began to leave his body. I continued to hold him, kissing his hair and mumbling to him that he was safe, that I was there, that I loved him, until eventually, at some point in the late afternoon, his calm returned.

He turned in my arms until he was facing me and looked up into my face with eyes that were swollen from crying and desperate for reassurance. But to give him that properly I needed to know what had happened.

"Victor," I asked gently, pressing soft kisses to his cheeks. "Who are Catherine and Otto?"

I watched as he closed his eyes tightly to stop a fresh wave of tears from spilling over and my heart ached for him.

"They are, no," he corrected himself, "they _were_ my parents."

"And they are- Oh, God, Victor, I am sorry," I told him, gathering him to me in a fierce hug. "I am so sorry."

"My mother is dead," he said in a small, childlike voice. "Catherine is dead. My father, though I have not called him so for many years, has been captured. He is, was, a politician in the Austrian government. He was very outspoken against the fascist movement."

"Victor, I am sorry," I repeated, not knowing what else to say.

"Don't be," he replied bluntly. "They hated me. Otto, if he lives through this, will continue to hate me. I do not even know why I have been so affected by this news. I have been dead to them for so many years, why should their deaths affect me?"

The hardness of his tone frightened me. Bauer could be blunt, even to the point of rudeness, but he rarely used so harsh a tone.

"Tell me about them?" I begged him, and to tell you the truth of it now, I am not sure why I felt I was entitled to such information. It was not for his benefit, but I hate to think that I begged the information from him to satisfy my curiosity. I did not expect him to tell me. He did not obey orders, but he did that day, that once, and I remember his words near exactly.

"I... I was conceived out of wedlock," he began in a tone that was conversational but far from light. "My parents married, but it was an unhappy union from the start. My father insisted on a civil ceremony rather than a religious one, no family attended. It was the first blow in my father's destruction of my mother. Not that she was an angel. A devout Catholic, yes, but an angel... most definitely not. She threatened to slit my throat if he had me circumcised."

"But you are-"

"Yes," he spoke over me. "I am, and there is a small scar under my chin to testify how close my mother came to carrying out her threat. They were simply... not made for each other. And not only because she was a Catholic of the old order and he was a socialist and a Jew.

It was for the best that Otto was rarely about. He had no time for me nor any desire to know me better. He was in the middle of his doctoral studies when I was born, _that_ was his real baby, and he refused to live in the same house as me for the first two years because my crying disturbed his study.

When he did come to live with us he argued with Catherine constantly. Every word he said to her was an insult and he never failed to remind her of her own worthlessness. She took out her anger at him on me. We were not a happy family.

When I was six tears old my mother and I moved out of Vienna to a country house that my father had provided for us, near the Italian border. I do not recall missing him, but I was desperate for him to be proud of me. He was secretary of the Social Democratic Party at that time and I read every edition of the party journal that he sent from cover to cover, hoping that he would visit and that I would have an opportunity to show my intelligence and loyalty to him. But he did not come and all I had were letters and books."

He stopped for breath and I took the opportunity to take his chin in my hands and kiss every inch of his face, tasting the tears on his cheeks and feeling the pain that he must feel in relating his story. I wanted to tell him that he did not need to continue if he did not feel able but he looked up into my eyes and I could not speak. His skin was pale save for around his eyes, and his ridiculous nose, and the cleft down to his lips, which were all painfully red and made him look far too young. I held my tongue and gave him a nod to let him know that I would not interrupt, that I would listen and stay with him until the end, and he closed his eyes as he continued his story.

"I was sent away to school in Milan when I was ten years old, the same year my father joined the Austro-Hungarian Army and was captured by the Russians. I wondered for three years why there were no letters from him, because my mother had not seen fit to tell me that he was a prisoner of war, and four years being tormented by my peers for being one of the 'damned Austrians who started the war'.

My teachers had high expectations for me, though I don't know why."

"Perhaps because of your vast intelligence?" I muttered but he scoffed at my words, pressing his forehead to my breast bone before continuing .

"I hated that school. Hated the way they talked down to us. Hated being referred to as 'boy'. Never by name, never Victor or Bauer, only 'boy'. I confronted my history master on it one day, after having my knuckles caned for my insolence. I told him my name was not 'boy' and he suggested that I might prefer the name 'girl' instead. I told him I should hate it no more or less than 'boy'. God, Rosey, but I was beaten for that. I did not even know who I was at that time, was a child, and already they were punishing me for it.

I graduated at sixteen, ahead of the boys my own age, but when I returned to my mother all that she could say was that I had my father's weedy disposition and was not a real man. She could see that I would be a sinner of the worst sort, she told me, that I needed to become a man before I was permitted to enter her presence. And so I went to Vienna and found my father.

He was... similarly disappointed in me. I told him of my plan to attend the Academy of Fine Art and he threatened to cast me out which, if it happened today would produce no more than a shrug from me, but at sixteen... I still wanted him to be proud of me. We came to an agreement, that I would be allowed to study art on the understanding that when it was done I would begin a degree in law and follow him into politics. He gave me a small allowance so that I was able to rent a room near the academy but prefered that I did not visit him too often. Even though our political leanings were very similar, he was not fond of me. But, I was able to attend art college and whilst I was far from being a star pupil I learnt so much. And I met..."

I saw him waver, his bottom lip quivering as he tried to form the words to tell me about the man who had known him before me. I kissed the top of his head, feeling his body press even more firmly to mine in an attempt to fuse our bodies and minds together so that he wouldn't have to tell me his story in words.

Sensing his reticence I wished I could tell him that he did not need to continue, that I did not need to know - that suddenly I did not _want_ to know - but he continued speaking and I closed my eyes tightly, focusing on his words and trying to suffocate the growing pressure of tears behind my lids.

"His name was Aloys," he told me, his voice a raw whisper. "He was... one of my professors. When he approached me one evening as I left the college, and told me that he _knew what I was_... I thought he was going to hand me over to the authorities. I was so naive, Rosey. I was seventeen.

And when he promised not to tell my father - told me that no one understood but he did, that no one could love me but him - God, Rosey I believed him. For almost a year I believed him. And he... we..." his voice cracked and he pushed his forehead against my chest with enough force that I was able to feel the pain of his memories. "He hurt me, Rosey... and when I told him I didn't want to do that anymore, he... he sent anonymous letters to all of my professors, to the head of the academy, to my parents, and member's of my father's political party..."

And in that moment my heart broke. For so many reasons. For a young man whose trust had been abused, who had been abandoned and hurt and manipulated. My heart broke for that man who was barely more than a boy and who, when the man he had thought he was loved by exposed him publicly, had also been faced with his parents' rejection.

He told me, though his words now were broken and jumbled, how his options had been prison, an asylum, or to flee. His mother had given him the necessary funds to get as far as Switzerland but on the condition that he never attempt to contact her or acknowledge their relationship. His father had simply denied having a son and, because Victor had been so little seen in the company of his father, most people believed him. He had sealed the deal when he passed on the details of Victor's 'crime of sodomy' to the authorities, because surely no father would do that to his son.

I had to agree with that. Surely no father would do that to their son, and so I could understand why Victor referred to his father as simply Otto, and his mother as Catherine. Yet he had cried for them, or perhaps he was finally grieving what had been done to him.

He continued to cry until his sobs turned to hitched whimpers and sighs and the taut muscles of his back and shoulders relaxed into sleep, his damp face still pressed against my chest and his legs tangled around mine, and I held him, not knowing what else I could do. If our roles had been reversed, if it had been me in tears, he would have known exactly what needed to be done, but all I could do in the situation was hold him and hope that when he woke he would have recovered himself.

I craned my neck as I heard Violette walk quietly to the side of the bed, her arms wrapped tightly around her slight frame and her face ashen.

"Jana is asleep," she whispered. "I am sorry. She received the letter this morning and flew into a panic. Both of her brothers were killed in the uprising, she thought Victor would want to know about his parents. I..."

"You heard?" I asked, my voice gravelly in my ears.

"I did not mean to," she replied. "But yes."

The silence stretched out between us as I considered what to say in response but knew that there was no need to point out to a woman like Violette that discretion was needed. Her affection for Bauer ran deep and I knew that the details of his past would be safe with her. Not that Victor had been anything other than a victim to the adults who should have cared for and protected him, but people can be - and too often are - cruel to those who are different and there were those who would use Bauer's past to ruin his present.

After several minutes she leant down and gave my shoulder squeeze before offering a weak smile.

"You have no food," she told me, "and I have drunk all of your coffee, so I am going out to get you more, and bread that is not riddled with mold, and something to drink because I think we all need it. I will be back soon. Will you be alright?"

I nodded and thanked her and when the door had closed behind her, plunging the room into silence, I shuffled down further in the bed, pulled Bauer as close to me as I was able, and closed my eyes, wishing the world and all its chaos would simply stop.


	10. Chapter 10

Watching him as he slept, the sweep of his dark lashes against his marble cheekbones, like a classic beauty, filled my heart with such love and sadness that it was like a physical pain. He was my impossible childman, my Bauer, a strange and beautiful creature who had come into this world like a shining light only to be met with hatred, ignorance and cold distain.

I could not fathom how anyone could treat him so and yet, at the same time, I could understand perfectly. Because he was unfathomable, and occasionally infuriating, with intelligence and creativity in such vast quantities that it occasionally overwhelmed even him. Because he was different. And because there was a side of him that was horribly, beautifully vulnerable, a trait that too many people in his young life had been happy to take advantage of.

He let out a short huff through his nose, a smile twitching at his lips before he had even woken, and I brushed his long hair away from his face as his eyes fluttered open like moths wings.

"Rosey," he said softly as his eyes focused on my face. "My constant Rosey. Why do you look so fearful?"

I shook my head, unsure of how to answer him, and he gave me a sorrowful smile in return, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to my lips that I so wished to deepen, to chase away his fear and insecurity and show him that I loved and adored him.

Such an action was out of the question, however, because we were not alone in our apartment and because, when Bauer woke up enough to detect the delicious aroma of beef and carrot stew, his stomach began to growl violently. He laughed innocently and told his belly to shush and have some patience and was such a mixture of the absurd and the delightful that I was forced to gather him into my arms for a hug so tight that it made him shriek, which startled Violette from the book she had been reading and Jana from her own slumber.

Victor, having noticed this, climbed out of our blankets and pulled on a woolen jumper, his eyes bright and his lips pursed. Jana saw him and immediately looked down at her hands and I worried that there would be tension between them, but Bauer climbed over the bed to reach her, embraced her, and pulled her back to sit with him among the blankets, talking quietly in their native tongue in a tone that was reassuring and consoling. I felt strangely excluded, watching them, but was reassured that my Bauer was able to comfort his friend and did not hold any ill feelings against her for being the barer of bad news.

I left them to their shared grief and comfort and went to assist Violette, who seemed to have worked wonders in our basic kitchen to create a stew that contained actual beef and edible vegetables. She put down her book and stood beside me as I gazed into the simmering pot and it felt like the most natural thing in the world for me to put my arm around her narrow waist, taking comfort in her presence and offering my thanks for the kindness and love she so often bestowed upon us. She leant into me, returning the affection and I marveled in that moment that I had been blessed with such people in my life as she and Victor.

"Is he alright?" she asked me softly as she stirred the food.

"He will be."

She nodded solemnly.

"I am glad he has someone who he can love, and who loves him in return. You are a very privileged man, Gui, never forget that."

Her words were hard, an ominous warning that made me shiver, and I knew that what she said was true, though I did not know what I could say to reassure her.

"He is lucky to have you as well, Violette. We both are."

She turned toward me at that, a small smirk on her full lips as she looked up, tilting her head slowly to look at me, seeing (as ever) more than was apparent.

"I know," she told me, "and I shall do what I can but, Gui, please listen. The world is changing. You must take care of one another. There is a storm building across Europe, I can sense it. And if I can feel it, Victor's senses must be filled with it. Do not let him do anything rash."

"I promise," I nodded, aware of my multitude of failings and that I had not always been the best companion to him, but sure in my desire to be with him always and in the knowledge that I was learning to love him and understand him better.

He chose that moment to appear at my side, sweeping Violette into a fierce and enthusiastic embrace that made her laugh more boisterously than I had ever heard from her before. He placed a lingering kiss on her cheek and she returned the affection, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth before leaning back to run her fingers through the tangles of his hair. He rested his hands gently on her hips and smiled at her so lovingly that it made me wonder why I did not feel any jealousy. But I knew my Bauer's heart, and Violette's morals, and did not feel threatened by their closeness. They behaved like beloved siblings and I enjoyed the look of bashful delight that came over Victor's face when they spoke together in private. I could always tell when they were speaking of me because he would bite his lip, his usually brash and confident social persona slipping away to reveal the eternal romantic underneath.

When Jana had dried her eyes and composed herself we sat down to eat together. Victor and I were not accustomed to dinner guests and so we all sat upon a rug on the floor in parody of a picnic, with bowls of stew and mugs of wine and, though we were not a very jolly party, it was an enjoyable evening that I have often looked back on with fondness because, as much as I abhor cliches (a topic you have heard me rant on before) it cannot be argued that there is something about good food and good company that makes for pleasant and lasting memories.

After Jana and Violette had finally left us I scooped Bauer up and into my arms and carried him back to our bed, lowering him to the mattress reverently and kissing his forehead, cheeks, nose, chin, ears, neck and throat before beginning to slide my hands up the inside of his jumper and along his warm skin. He gave a shiver at the feel of my palms against his ribs but lifted his arms to allow me to undress him with greater ease, smiling lazily and stretching his slender body like a cat when his naked chest was revealed.

He bit his lip as he gazed at me, being intentionally coy and provocative and I huffed out a breath of laughter as I leant in to kiss him, enjoying the way he reached up to grasp the hair at the nape of my neck, forcing my mouth more firmly against his.

I did not want to push him too far, did not know whether he would want to do anything more than kiss and be close after what he had divulged to me about his other sexual experiences, but Victor seemed to have no such qualms. If anything he was more confident, as though in the telling of those secrets he had gained courage, and the more assertive he became the more I began to wish to be free of my own garments.

He tugged at my hair as he pushed his shoulder against mine and I took the hint and rolled to my side, allowing him to push me on to my back so that he could sit astride my lap and deepen our kisses. Whilst one hand remained firmly tangled in my hair, the other began to deftly remove my clothes, stroking over my skin, his short finger nails grazing enough to make my hips cant upwards, my growing erection pushing against his backside and making me moan.

My pleasure was cut short, however, by my own sudden realisation of what I had done and I began to fear that I had overstepped the boundary between what was acceptable and safe and what was not. Indeed, Bauer was no longer kissing me, simply resting his lips against mine and breathing in short, hard gasps, and so I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him down against me, our chests meeting with enough force to knock the wind from us both. I shifted my legs so that he would not feel the press of my erection against him and ran my hand up and down his spine in as comforting a manner as I could manage, hoping that he would give me some sign that he was sound and well.

"Rosey," he mumbled against my lips. "I am alright, my love. I am. Except that I can not breathe, he grinned. "You love me too tightly."

"Sorry," I smiled, relaxing my hold and allowing him to raise himself up onto his hands and knees above me, his hair a curtain of dark waves that obscured his eyes from me so that I could not see if what he said was true or simply a falsehood for my benefit.

"I am," he said in answer to my unspoken concern and I nodded to him, smiling again in response to the grin that was unfurling on his angular face. "And perhaps, one day, we shall do those things, but-"

"They aren't important," I said, changing the conclusion for him. "I thought that it was the only way to complete our physical relationship, to be as close to you as it is possible to be, to be within you and part of you, but I was wrong. Because _knowing_ you does not have to mean..."

"Intercourse?"

"Yes. Knowing you is being trusted enough by you to be told your past. Being _known_ by you is..."

"-trusting me enough to make me the keeper of your poetry?"

"Yes," I said again and he slowly lowered his lips onto mine, kissing me with such intimacy that I saw that the physical oneness I had so desired had been mine all along.

"My Rosey, my Rosey," Victor mumbled between kisses as he somehow managed to free us both of our trousers and underthings until our skin was bare and pressed warmly together and I could feel the wetness from the tip of his manhood sliding against my thigh.

I grabbed the bottle of oil from its precarious perch atop a stack of books and pulled the cork free as Victor began to suck and nip and my neck, leaving small, blossoming bite marks in his wake. He found my pulse point, lapping and licking at it until I could not tell the beat of my heart from the rhythm of his tongue and realised that we were already as close as it was possible for two people to be. Which particular physical acts we engaged in were irrelevant when we were already so entwined in each others' being, and realising so was both a moment of epiphany and a relief.

My body arched into his touch and as our chests pressed together once more I felt as if my skin had melded with his. The pleasure I felt that night was so extreme it was on the knife's edge of pain, delicious and shattering, and not because we did anything different or more, but because of the final stage of spiritual awaking occurring within me. I fancied I could hear and feel Victor inside of me, within my mind and soul, more clearly than ever before, because he was finally open to me, and I to him.

And when I was finally brought to climax, when he finally allowed me to from his position above me, hands holding mine and holding them down, it felt like the sudden relief of a summer storm, the electricity in the air bursting and breaking and bringing forth the rain that had been longed for but never truly expected.

And when I cried (which I still look back on with a measure of embarrassment all these years later) he did not laugh unkindly but with the most sincere joy and relief.

"I love-" I tried to speak but there was no air in my lungs and Victor impeded me further by pressing his head to my breast bone.

"-I love you also."

I nodded, bringing my heavy arms up to wrap about his slender form as I tried to form my own sentiments, to no avail.

"I love you also," I echoed, and he laughed again, deep and affectionate.

"Always-"

"-and forever."

Such extremes were a defining feature of that year. When we stepped out together at artistic events we continued to be praised and were able to push our synchronisation to such a level of perfection that several members of the Surrealist movement asked for permission to study us for wires or radios, certain that we were using trickery, but there was none and we remained a marvel.

I wrote more poems that year than perhaps at any other time, filling boxes with the pages that held my words to Bauer, and another published book of my poems for the wider world (which you have read, I know). Our friend, Yves Tanguy, begged to be allowed to add his illustrations to it and Bauer agreed and the sales of that volume kept us in coffee, wine and bread for most of that year and into the next, though I am still not entirely sure why it was so very popular.

Bauer's work continued to gain strength, though he refused to go out of his way to promote it, preferring to give other artists the opportunities that I felt he should have kept for himself. When others became suspicious of him he invented detailed and _almost_ believable stories as to why he could not possibly travel to exhibit his work, and most people simply accepted that he was impossibly eccentric and left him to his work - though some were more insistent.

Henri Goetz was one such young artist who Victor chose to help and one who did not accept his fabrications so easily. After Bauer saw his work he announced that it was in and of itself rubbish, but full of potential, pushing Goetz's face up against his work and showing him that there was, locked within the paint, something magnificent and sacred if Goetz could only find it. I stood in the corner of the studio watching silently, enjoying the way that Victor moved his hands like a conductor as he described to the younger man what he was capable of and what was lacking in his work, and half expected Goetz to pay my lover an insult in return - as sometimes happened - but he did not.

He was humble in his thanks for the criticism and followed us home instead, begging to learn from Bauer, not even glancing at our clasped hands as we walked the streets to our humble building, and my panic began to rise as he followed us up the stairs and toward our door, but Bauer gave my hand three reassuring squeezes before turning to face his eager new disciple.

"You cannot come in," he said bluntly. "The room is full of naked young women and they shan't take kindly to being stared at by a stranger."

"But," Goetz blinked at us, his small eyes and soft, homely face showing his bewilderment at such news. "Why is your room full of naked women?"

"Oh," Bauer said, filling his voice with mock wisdom until I was forced to look away for fear that I would laugh and spoil his show. "They are hard at work, you know, painting the ceiling. And as any right thinking artist knows, one cannot paint a ceiling whilst fully clothed. Just think of the logistical problems that could cause." He stared at Goetz with no hint of a lie upon his face but the younger man, being of an honest and straight forward disposition, still did not move and Bauer was forced to continue."I can lend you one or two of those books I mentioned, if that would make you go away. And I shall meet you at your studio on Wednesday if it suits you, but I am going inside now, and you are not."

I unlocked the door at this cue and slipped inside, knowing which books Victor had referred to and gathering them up quickly before returning to the landing and the still bewildered young artist before us.

"How," he asked, seeming timid and confused in equal measures. "That is, why are your books still in your room if you are having your ceiling painted?"

"How else would the young women reach so high?" Bauer countered, matching Goetz's bafflement until I felt I would collapse from my need to laugh. "You cannot climb a ladder naked, Henri, do try to think these things through. Now, here are your books, read them before Wednesday. And _there_ is your exit."

He spun dramatically and I opened the door just wide enough to permit his entry before closing it firmly and locking it in the face of our strange follower, whereupon the laughter was finally allowed to escape my lungs. I hugged my Victor close to me, kissing his hair and face - bringing his hands to my lips so that I could kiss them as well - laughing all the while with sheer delight at his ability to weave such absurd stories that made the world seem more magical than it really was.

And when we returned to see Henri Goetz that Wednesday he had not only read the books leant to him but had a list of questions and a new painting to show Victor as well as a handful of sketches. Within the year Victor had introduced him to the Surrealists and helped to facilitate an exhibit of Goetz's work in London. He did the same for half a dozen others and asked nothing in return, working simply to fill the world with art and help artists to be the best that they could be.

As that year ended and the next began the streets again grew restless and news was coming from all sides of Fascism's rise and the looming threat of Germany and Victor's periods of calm grew shorter. His relationship with several of the Surrealists deteriorated when they refused to take a stance against Fascism or the actions of Mussolini toward his neighbours and during those conversations I could barely keep pace, allowing him to speak for both of us as he gripped my hand firmly and fought to speak rationally when I knew that what he wanted more than anything was to call those weak willed individuals out as the brainless garden snails that they were.

Breton wholeheartedly agreed with him, though he directed his praise to me, and Bauer's impassioned words affected many of the younger members to take a firm stance against the right wing politics that was dominating so much of Europe by that time.

We were called wise men - learned men - but it was only in April of that year, nineteen thirty-five, that we celebrated Victor's thirtieth birthday, and I realised that some of the 'young artists' that he had helped were the same age, and occasionally older than he. But among our peers he had a charisma that made him seem ageless. He was still considered, in many ways, to be an outsider but he was happy to be so most of the time - known but not famous, acknowledged but not seeking attention - until he accidentally caught the eye of Gala.


	11. Chapter 11

Elena Ivanovna Diakonova. Madame Eluard. Madame Dali. She was a woman of many names but she was best known, and is still known to this day, as purely Gala, a woman who a wise man would not willingly cross.

Victor had already warned me of Gala and Dali's unusual relationship and sexual practices, and Breton had added his own cautionary advice with regard to the sexual power that Gala wielded in our artistic circle and it was advice that I took very seriously once I had met her.

She was an intelligent and beguiling woman and one who took great delight in the fact that her naked form had been captured so perfectly (and so frequently) in her lover's art work - that even those of us who had not accepted the invitation to her bed had seen her body bared and willing. She was Dali's muse, and there was no argument of his devotion and love for her, but neither did he have qualms about her relationships with other men. Gala was likewise dedicated to Dali but devotion and monogamy were, for her, two very separate things.

She was revered by many, lusted after by more, hated by some and feared by most but remained, like so many of the figures associated with our movement, an enigmatic figure, courting mystery and intrigue, which only increased her allure.

The most pointed warning against Gala however had not concerned her promiscuity or her passion for being publicly exposed or having an audience whilst in the throws of passion. No, the greatest warning came from Violette and her friends as we shared a bottle of vodka at the small night club near their building late one night, and her words troubled me more deeply than any rumours about menage-a-trois possibly could.

"She has a child, you know," Violette told me somberly, holding her shot glass out for Victor to refill.

"By who?" I asked, shocked that neither Victor nor the other women at the table were surprised by the information.

"Eluard," Jana informed me. "Paul Eluard, the poet. You know him?"

I nodded. I had been aware that Eluard and Gala had been married some years ago, was aware that they were still engaged in an irregular affair even, but had not known about a child.

"A child?"

"Nearly a woman now," Victor told me, and his eyes grew melancholy and grey as he looked up at me. "She has just turned seventeen, I think. Poor Cecile."

I was baffled as to how this information was not more widely known but it was explained that Gala had barely acknowledged her daughter since the girl was eleven and had been an uncaring mother even before she had abandoned her.

"Cecile lives with her grandmother now," Violette continued the tale, "but Monsieur Picasso is the one who cares for her the most. He is more her parent than either her mother or father. Gala was never a real mother to her at all. Mothers should not belittle and neglect their children. Cecile deserved better, it would have been an honour to bear such an intelligent, kind daughter."

The women around the table nodded solemnly and drank their vodka together, as if in salute to the young woman who had been forced to endure such an unfeeling mother, and I watched them and wondered, wishing that I could know more of their stories but too socially feeble to know how to ask.

I knew that they managed their affairs carefully, that they lived with the knowledge that a child would be an impossibility within their world and that they would not be able to be the devoted mother they felt a child deserved.

I have never had a desire for children, I have not known many and, whilst I enjoy nurturing the talents of young adults such as yourself, I do not believe I have the patience or skills to deal with children. But I could see in the faces around me that yearning for parenthood and the sad recognition that such yearning would never be fulfilled. Violette, and the women like her, did not envy Gala her many lovers or marriages, or her traveling, celebrity lifestyle and fine clothes. It was the fact that she had mistreated her child which made them disdainful of her, the gift she had been given and failed to recognise which ignited their ire. And if Cecile Eluard was not well known I suspect it was because there were people in her life who took pains to keep her safe and separated from her parents' reputations.

Their protective instincts were just as strong with Bauer as with Cecile and when she had thrown back her shot of vodka Violette leaned over to kiss Victor on the cheek, an action which I echoed on his other side, and his laugh, half way between a giggle and a cackle, soon had us all smiling once more and swapping news and gossip on lighter subjects. But that insight into Gala's character stayed with me, for hers were the actions of woman who was inherently selfish, and ruthless when it came to obtaining her own ends.

I had been on the receiving end of Gala's attentions several times since joining the Surrealists but she had never seemed to be trying in earnest with me, only flirting because that was her way and, to my knowledge, she had never taken any personal interest in Bauer at all. We were not important enough perhaps for her to bother with when there were men like Dali and Ernst and Breton to play with, and we considered it a blessing. Until, one month after Victor's thirtieth birthday, when Gala's eye turned in our direction.

She was a singularly handsome woman, slender and well proportioned, dressed that night in a tailored, cream dress, and she possessed an innate understanding of how to use her body to get what she wanted. And, as she crossed the room toward Bauer and I at the opening of Dali's latest exhibition, it seemed that she was putting all of that knowledge to use, walking like a panther stalking its prey, her eyes focused on Victor.

"Here," she said smoothly, handing Victor one of the two glasses of red wine she had been holding, taking a sip from the other with a hungry look in her eyes.

He took it silently but didn't drink, instead looking pointedly in my direction, and I knew he was on the verge of asking why Gala would get a drink for him and not for me. I gave his hand a gentle squeeze - _no._ \- but Gala's sharp gaze seemed to immediately shoot in that direction and her lips, coloured in a hue a few shades darker than blood red, curled in a smile that made my skin crawl.

"How very remiss of me," she said, drinking her wine in a single swallow and thrusting the glass at a passing waiter before turning her focus back to Victor. "To have brought a drink for you and not for your... companion. But there is no need to fear, I am sure. He is a grown man. He can fetch his own wine, and I shall look after you while he is gone."

And suddenly her two hands were upon our clasped ones, sliding between them like eels until she had Victor's hand clutched firmly in one of hers and mine held limply in the other (which she very quickly dropped), her smile never wavering as she forced her way between us, pressing her breasts against Victor's side as she did so. The look he gave her was bemused but she simply continued to smile, glancing over her shoulder at me with an eyebrow raised in dismissal.

I had no clue about how I should respond to such behaviour but Victor rolled his eyes and nodded and so I left, against my better judgement, to find myself a drink as behind me Bauer took a sip of his own and noted that the taste was unlike any red wine he had previously encountered.

Finding a drink proved to be a harder task than it aught to have been. I could not seem to find a waiter anywhere in the gallery and, as I made my way to the bar, I was waylaid twice by bare acquaintances who wanted to know my opinion on Italy's recent invasion of Abyssinia. I gave them Bauer's opinion, that we needed, as a people, to oppose Italy's violent foreign policy and support the Italian Resistance Movement both in Abyssinia and back in Italy rather than falling for the pro-Mussolini propaganda that praised his achievements and empire building - but excused myself abruptly on both occasions, my anxiety making me blunt and uncommunicative as it so often does.

What I saw of Bauer did nothing to relieve my mild panic. My first glance back showed him scowling down into his half-drunk glass of wine as Gala batted her lashes at him, standing far too close for my comfort. The next time I caught sight of him, his glass was empty and Gala had somehow attracted the notice of a waiter who was supplying them each with another drink. Victor's face was guarded and Gala was pressed close to him, whispering words into his ear that I was desperate to hear.

When I had finally secured my own beverage, my jaw clenched tight and my body beginning to sweat as my nerves multiplied, I turned to find my way back to my Victor only to feel my heart jump suddenly to my mouth when he was not where I had left him. My eyes swept the room frantically, my attempt to appear nonchalant failing when I could not immediately see him. I pushed through the crowd to where we had been standing and finally caught sight of him, sitting in a dimly lit alcove with Gala on his lap.

Her hands were running over his chest and shoulders, her smile predatory, but my concern was not that Victor had any intention of being intimate with her, but that he was being taken advantage of. He seemed pale, his eyes heavy lidded, and on the table in front of him stood two empty wine glasses. He had consumed three drinks earlier in the evening but another two should not have caused him to become so pliable, or so ill looking, and my mind immediately began to race with possibilities, the first being that he was unwell and needed to be taken home at once.

But as I approached, moving around behind them so that I could come closer without notice, I was finally able to hear the poison that Gala was pouring into my beloved's ear.

"It is a fine act, to be sure, Bauer. The men are fooled because they _are_ fools and they see what they wish to see, but women... well, we notice what you would prefer us not to see. And what I see, quite plainly, is how desperately you are in love with Gui Rosey. Whether he requites you in the manner you would wish, that I have not yet uncovered - though I shall - but your attachment to him is rather obvious, and it will get you into trouble. I am right, aren't I, Bauer?"

She held his chin between her fingers and gazed into his eyes, glassy and unfocused as they were, and my heart stopped as he murmured that he felt nothing but the purest platonic love for me.

"He is my brother," he slurred. "My spiritual brother... I feel unwell."

"Come, come now, Bauer. You are barely a man but surely you can hold your drink better than this. And do not look at me like I am your enemy. I have come to offer you my protection," Gala purred, moving her hips so that her backside pressed against Bauer's crotch. "All too soon your secret shall be discovered, you know that as well as I do. Already they talk about you, and soon they shall turn their gossip to Rosey as well, even if the man has had more women in his bed than I have had men. You know what you should do."

"Do I?" Bauer asked, his voice high and weak, a child suddenly out of his depth, and unable, in such a state, to hide behind his usual bluster.

"Of course you do," Gala told him and as I stepped closer I saw her hips shift once more, her hand slipping downwards, sliding between his legs to rub the seam of his trousers hopefully. "My bed is free tonight. Join me in it and your safety shall be assured. I shall make it known that you are a lover of women and not perverse in the slightest. It has been too long since I took a virgin, Bauer, and I know you are one. Come to my room."

"No," Bauer mumbled but his answer was cut short and he pursed his lips into a thin line, his eyes closing tight like a man holding desperately to a life line as Gala squeezed his genitals before continuing her rubbing, more firmly than before.

I stood incensed but unsure how to intervene without causing Gala to suspect us all the more but when Victor let out a faint whimper - one of discomfort rather than pleasure - my feet took the final few steps forward on their own.

"Victor?" I asked, my voice hard enough to make Gala jump and Bauer's eyes snap open in alarm.

"Rosey," he gasped, and I could see the fear in his flushed cheeks and wide, pale eyes. "Rosey, I-"

"-look very unwell. We should retire. I fear you have fallen victim to a Summer cold."

"Yes," he whispered but his attempt to stand was thwarted by Gala who refused to move from his lap and who overpowered him, weak and addled as he was.

"But, Gui!" Gala gushed, patting the sofa beside her for me to join them. "Victor and I were just getting to know one another. You would not pull him away from the party so early, would you? People will talk."

"I believe he told you no," I replied, unable to muster any emotion beyond distain for her. "He does not want your bed or anyone else's bed but his own. We are leaving."

Gala stood, unfurling provocatively and standing before me, too close for me to be comfortable, and forcing me to acknowledge the plump, pertness of her bosom when I looked down at her.

"Is he your pet, that you order him so?" she asked, her voice teasing while her eyes held a challenge. "I only wanted to help, you know. People whisper about him. Breton will have him ousted if he learns of his perversion. You would not want to become embroiled in such a scandal as well, would you? Be accused of offering your arse to men as he so obviously does? Or does he just offer his arse to you? Is that what this whole living art piece is about?"

I stared at her, stunned into silence and desperately trying to think of what I could say to her that would allay her suspicion without seeming homophobic myself (for I had no desire to hide my relationship under a pretense of hatred and bigotry), but without Victor's hand in mine I could think of nothing at all and she leered at me as she leaned back to stroke Bauer's hair as if he were indeed some house trained animal.

"Of course," Gala continued in what I imagine was her most seductive voice, "you could always join us, Rosey. This little ganymede might come more willingly if you were there to sweeten the deal."

She was so sure of herself in that moment, and so intent on winning her prize, that she could not even imagine that I would turn her down. Her look of utter surprise then, when I poured my glass of wine down her front, and then dropped the glass, letting it shatter on the floor, was both profound and memorable. And if the sound of a shattering glass was not enough to draw the attention of the entire party, her indignant shriek certainly was.

The cardinal stain of the wine spread quickly through the cream fabric of her dress, like blood seeping from her bosom to her groin and I could not help but delight at how grandly poetic it was - until she slapped me and I recalled that I was being watched by over one hundred people all of whom would be drawing their own conclusions about our actions - and I had not even the vaguest clue as to what I should do next.

Bauer stood just as Dali pushed through the crowd to stand before me and for a moment the notion that we could come to blows passed through my mind. But then Dali began to laugh and to clap, applauding us loudly and gesturing lovingly to his wife as if she should be congratulated.

"Wonderful," he exclaimed as our audience began to applaud as well. "Perfect! And now you, my most adored Gala, have been formed into living art just like our friends Rosey and Bauer. And so symbolic," he chuckled, and Gala gave a tight smile in return. "Did you attempt to get between them, my dear? You should know better than to get between two brothers. Soul mates, whatever their form, should not be trifled with. But come, you must walk the room with me now, that all our guests may enjoy your improved apparel."

He bowed first to Bauer and then to myself, his moustache twitching in his amusement, before taking Gala's arm and leading her back into the crowd, many of whom were perplexed and trying to appear knowledgable as Gala was paraded through the gallery in her ruined dress.

When they appeared to have forgotten me I stepped quickly to Victor's side and took his arm.

"Are you alright?" I whispered to him desperately, panicking when he did not immediately reassure me. "Victor? My Bauer? Are you very unwell?"

His body, seeming so slight in his light summer suit, swayed alarmingly, and I put my arm around his waist as I led him to the exit, keeping my eyes lowered to avoid unwanted questions or contact.

When we reached the street he gave up the pretense that he was only a little worse for wear and very nearly collapsed against me, his body slumped and his chest shuddering as he tried to breathe.

"I think," he whispered raggedly, "that there was something in my wine... other than wine."

I shall not repeat in writing the words I spoke when I heard that. Suffice to say that my language was coarse enough to bruise the air around us and cause passers by to look up at me and scowl, not that I cared for their sensibilities. Not when Victor had been mistreated, by a woman I had been warned against, whilst under my watch.

I felt an utter failure and, after we had stopped on our journey home three times for Bauer to vomit into the gutter, I scooped him into my arms and carried him the rest of the way. He protested, which I took as a positive sign that his mind was still clear enough to be alarmed at being carried like a bride through the streets, but I did not stop, and by the time we approached our building his head was lolling against my shoulder and he was as good as sleeping.

He woke several more times through the night in order to empty his stomach and I did not sleep at all but by morning he was mostly recovered, if rather raw throated and hung over but, we were both deeply shaken by the incident. It was as I poured him a glass of water and a mug of strong coffee that I made the decision that perhaps a change of scenery was in order, if just for a short time. It was Summer, and Bauer had never been to the coast, so that is where we went.

I must pause though, before I relate that chapter of our lives, because the light is fading and my eyes are no longer as keen as I would like to believe. I shall leave these pages here for you, to read on the condition that you yourself have not been idle today. And tomorrow perhaps I shall tell you a little of the months we spent by the sea near Nice, because it was not all scandal and danger, you know. Sometimes we simply read books or took walks or ate dinner together quietly at home. Sometimes he went to great lengths to infuriate me and sometimes I infuriated him by being oblivious to world events that he considered the height of importance. Some days he sat at my feet with a pair of scissors in hand and a determined expression on his face and insisted on trimming my toe nails. Other days he allowed me to brush his hair.

But I must stop here for the night, or I never shall. This process has once again left me melancholy and strangely empty, despite the joy of my remembrances. The ghosts fill my mind and insist they will not budge, but they must lay quiet a while, for I am an old man and in need of my bed.

And so, until tomorrow.


	12. Chapter 12

My dear -,

You must forgive the reticence with which I return to this tale, though I know you wish to read our story in full, I have found it hard to put pen to paper today. I dreamed last night. Of days spent by the water, of laughter, of love and light. Carefree days in which we made believe that the shadow hanging over the world was not there at all. But the dream ended with darkness, and with regret, as every dream does, and then I opened my eyes and looked out of my window this morning and realised that from our reclusive, little mountain top, I can see all the way to Milan. And I am ashamed to say that it made me weep.

You must forgive my weakness, for I am an old man now, and self-control slips further from me every day, determined to leave me a dribbling idiot who cries at landscapes and forgets what he ate for breakfast. Yet I can remember those years with him in such clarity that at times I hope I might become lost in them, submerged in my reminiscences until there is no possibility of returning to this grey, modern world - only Bauer, and the golden years we spent together. But I am not so lucky.

I left you last on the night in which Gala, wife of Dali, attempted to seduce my Victor into her bed by any means necessary. She was unsuccessful of course, but her perception of our relationship and brazen attempt at blackmail left us both shaken, Bauer quite literally.

The morning after that horrid night, just as I had determined in my mind that a holiday was needed, Victor woke with a pained groan, retching drily into the pail I had left by the bed for him and sobbing at the pain of his raw and burned throat. The room stank of his vomit, which was almost enough to raise my own gorge, and so I opened the windows, handed Victor his glass of water and mug of coffee and took the pail away to the shared bathroom at the end of the hall, trying not to breathe in the pungent odor.

I was not successful in my attempts to keep my nostrils shut whilst my hands were both occupied, surprisingly, but when I accidentally breathed in my sensed were overwhelmed by the smell of bitter aniseed and something like rotten herbs and I realised, with a fresh wave of anger, that absinthe must have been added to Victor's wine that night.

I clenched my teeth against my rage, and the smell, and debated whether it was right to share my suspicions with Victor as soon as I returned or whether it was best to let him fully recover first. I knew I would have to tell him, to do otherwise somehow felt dishonest, as if I too were being underhanded toward him, but I also knew that he would be fragile and full of self-loathing for at least the first half of the day and that bringing up what Gala had given him would only exacerbate his dark mood.

I still had not made up my mind when I returned but found that I did not need to, for Bauer was sitting up in bed waiting for me, his face grim and his hands so tight around his coffee mug that his knuckles were white.

"It seems I ingested absinthe last night," he told me in a soft, cracked voice and I nodded as I came to sit on the bed, watching his face carefully.

"That was my thought as well," I agreed.

"It was a not so surprising choice, I suppose," he continued, though he was forced to stop and clear his throat regularly. "A great many people consider it to be an aphrodisiac and certainly it lowers inhibitions, but..." he pursed his lips and blinked up at the ceiling as his eyes became watery and his cheeks flushed. "My body does not cope well with absinthe. We drank it in surprising quantities at university and-"

His breath hitched and I leaned forward carefully to wrap my arms around him, trying not to knock the mug from his hands but desperate all the same to show him that I understood what he was trying to tell me. He pressed his forehead into the crook of my neck and I could hear his failed attempts to control his breathing before he gave in to the urge to cry.

"You idiot, Bauer," he berated himself but I disagreed.

"No," I told him, taking the coffee from his hands and placing it beside the bed so that I could hug him to me more tightly. "No, you are not an idiot. She put that filth - that _illegal_ filth - into your wine. She planned it. We knew she was callous but it is not your fault - or mine - that we did not not know just what she is capable of. I am guilt ridden, my Victor, that this happened, but it was not us but she who was responsible."

Victor wrapped his arms about my waist and held me with such desperation that his fingers began to bruise my skin even through my shirt but I made no attempt to escape his embrace. The incident had frightened us both but for him it had triggered old memories as well and I knew that what he needed more than anything else was physical comfort and reassurance, and so that is what I gave.

We lay down together in the bed and, as I pulled him into my arms, his back to my chest, I realised how terribly tired I was. I had not slept that night, merely dozing once or twice between holding Bauer and stroking his shoulders and neck as his body purged itself of the alcohol it had unwittingly consumed, and suddenly my body refused to remain conscious.

I pressed comforting, gentle kisses along the curve of Bauer's shoulder as I mumbled to him that he was safe, that he was loved, that I was there with him, and that I would never leave his side again, even to get a drink or piss, if he so desired it. He laughed at that, a surprised exhalation and silent shaking on his shoulders that reassured me that no matter what happened to him, his humour would still remain.

As we both began to drift into the arms of sleep I told him of my idea to take him away to the seaside and heard him take a sharp breath at the thought. He clasped my hands in his and lifted them to his lips to kiss my fingers and I soon felt the hot warmth of tears against my hands as well and I rocked him to sleep with stories of the coast and the smell of the sea and the delicious food we would eat when we arrived, and soon we both slept, finally able to relax with a new plan unfurling in our minds.

It took longer than I would have liked for me to organise our furlough to the south and over the month that followed I watched as Bauer became more guarded in public, more skittish and reticent, and more likely to snap at those who disagreed with him. He barely left the apartment on his own and if he had an engagement with his friends at a theatre or cafe I walked him to his destination and was there to meet him again at the appointed time.

We avoided Dali - and Gala, obviously - and Breton took this as a sign that we agreed with his desire to have Dali expelled from the Surrealists for his populist and money-making ways. It was an opinion which neither Bauer or I ever refuted, though we bore the man himself no true ill will, we simply did not want to be forced into company with his wife every time the Surrealists met, a desire which kept us away from many gatherings which I think only added to Victor's erratic moods.

Twice he and I argued to the point that he made a move to leave the apartment, and if it had not been the middle of the night on both occasions I would have welcomed his desire to get out on his own for a short while, but both times he balked when it came to actually stepping through the door, and seeing fear in in those intelligent and fierce eyes was painful in the extreme.

So many times in the course of our relationship I had promised to watch over him and keep him safe but I seemed to fail at every turn and even began to despair of finding somewhere for our holiday, until some unexpected fortune fell into our laps.

Henri Goetz had rented a house in the city of Nice with the intention of spending the summer and autumn by the sea but had been extended the unexpected honour of an extension of his exhibition, first in London and then to Amsterdam and Berlin and would therefore be traveling for the next several months. The house was a small one, and on the outskirts of the city (in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat to be exact), though as close to the coast as it was possible to be, and the day that Goetz arrived unexpectedly on our doorstep requesting that we make use of his holiday in his stead was a surprising one indeed.

It was so unexpected that I, in my shock, invited the young man in, even though visitors were rarely granted entrance to our home, and did not realise what I had done until I heard Victor let out a rather comical squeak before running to put on some clothes and cursing me under his breath, but Goetz did not seem perturbed.

He was far too interested in the room itself to notice its inhabitants and turned in a slow circle with his mouth hanging slack like a child in a sweets shop, marveling at the walls of books, stacks of canvases and sketches and boxes and piles of drafted poems and essays, and when he turned back to face me I could see that he felt he had been granted a great privilege.

"It is a paradise," he said in quiet awe.

Bauer emerged in a kaftan, obviously the first item he had grabbed in his haste, and gave me a warning look, though I could not help smiling. The flowing robe had been a gift from some of his chorus girl friends, something exotic for him to wear about his rooms, and it was a stunning mix of peacock blues and sea greens that enhanced the colour of his eyes and made him seem more like the strange, heavens child that he was, neither male or female and yet both at once. He wrapped his arms around his waist defensively, obviously aware that it was not the wisest garment to don but knowing too that he was unable to change it now. But Goetz did not react negatively to such an outlandish item.

In fact, Goetz was probably one of the few surrealist artist who could be counted upon to not even blink at anything Victor did. He had decided, at our first meeting, that Victor and I were strange, that we often told him things that were untrue and that we did so for our own reasons, but that ultimately nothing we did was malicious or at his expense. He was a straight forward man, and a gifted artist and I rather liked him, after a fashion. And he never forgot to be grateful for the introductions Bauer had made on his behalf.

When he noticed Bauer standing in the doorway to the bedroom his eyes widened further and we both tensed. Not only was Victor in a state of undress (the kaftan slipping from his shoulder and doing nothing to hide the fact that he was naked beneath) but Goetz could clearly see that our home contained only one bed, and that it's sheets were rumpled in a most intimate way. Instead his reaction was classically Goetz, which we should have anticipated.

"What beautiful colours," he said, gazing at the fabric. "You look like one of your own paintings."

And that was that. When it came to the details of the holiday he did inform us that the house had only one bedroom but assured us that how many beds a place had, or how that bed might be shared and by whom was surely a private matter and not something he would ever gossip about.

The relief must have been evident on our faces because he went on to promise us that he would never reveal what we ourselves had not made public and do you know, he has held to that.

I read his biography not long ago and he did mention Bauer, and the influence he had on the development of Goetz's work and style but only said that he was eccentric and mysterious and a tremendous liar. He did note that the lies and inconsistencies in Bauer's private life held him back in his art which, I admit, I may have taken as a personal slight at the time of reading, but he never told our secrets, and for that I am grateful.

I am also eternally in his debt for the months of joy and freedom we spent on the south coast thanks to his generosity. We took very little with us - art supplies and paper in one case, a few pairs of trousers and shirts in the other - locked our door and gave the key to Violette for safe keeping, and set off on an adventure like two men of action rather than the lost boys we actually were.

I could write a thousand pages to you of what we did that summer, of all that I saw, both in Nice and of Victor. The journey south on the train made him nervous which in turn made him excessively talkative and I was thankful that it was an overnight journey so that we could at least sleep through several of the hours but I still had to use persuasion to convince him to lie down on his narrow bunk, and his nervous giggling at the thought of being caught en flagrante on a moving train did nothing to calm his nerves.

We were a rather disheveled duo when we alighted at Nice the next morning and it was an additional tram journey to our final destination but we made it there eventually, obtained our key from the owner of the cafe on the corner, and entered our holiday residence with great relief.

It was no more than a cottage but everything we needed it to be. The garden was overgrown but covered in late blooming flowers and the bougainvillea that covered the walls and framed every window had us both caught up in nostalgia and romantic sentiment from the moment we arrived.

Victor insisted that making love in every room of the house was entirely necessary and I, ever the fool, went along with him, and we barely left the house for those first three days, save to source food and discover the outhouse at the end of the garden. We were both deliriously happy and when we began to walk around our suburb we found the people friendly and relaxed. They had not fallen victim to the new world's opinion of affection and we were not the only people holding hands in friendship, which delighted Bauer no end.

When he saw the beach for the first time, walking down to the end of the street to where the cobble stones gave way to grass and pebbles and then the wide expanse of golden sand and pale blue sea, his eyes widened to the point that they began to water and reflected the colour of the water so perfectly that I wished I had been a painter in order to capture their beauty. He grinned at me, the sort of smile that heralded mischief, and before I could ask him his intentions he was tugging at his shoes and socks, hopping about on the grass in his hast to reach the sand and touch it with his bare toes.

We both ended up rolling our trousers above our knees in order to wade in the crystaline water but as neither of us knew how to swim we did not venture any further in and Victor was satisfied with wetting his legs and nothing else, walking about and looking at his feet and remarking at the effects of the water and sunlight, at the pleasant coolness of it, and the delicious texture of both the wet and dry sand.

He was not so pleased at the prospect of donning his socks or shoes to walk home in when it was time to leave and so walked back up through the streets in his bare feet, swinging his shoes merrily and grinning all the while, his mind afire with the colours and new experiences of the day. When we lay in bed that evening he remarked that our kisses tasted of the sea, and how seemingly magical it was that the smell and scent and essence of the ocean had managed to permeate our very beings in only one afternoon. When I pointed out that the sand had also managed to permeate our bed clothes he admitted that he was actually enjoying the feel of it - the scratch and grit against his skin - and I called him a madman, a sentiment he agreed with soundly, but eventually allowed me to shake out the sheets before we retired, to avoid being woken by any unfortunate chaffing.

The next morning Victor rose early and had gathered his small box of water colours, some pencils, and a sketch book before I had even pulled myself from the bed. We ate a light breakfast at the cafe which very quickly became our regular haunt and then set off once again for the beach.

Somehow, within that first week, my Bauer managed to produce enough paintings of the cove of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat that he ran out of paper, but this was a problem easily remedied because his work quickly gained admirers as well. He sold his paintings for whatever loose change the passers by had with them - if they liked the piece it was theirs, regardless of how much or little they had to offer - and somehow it allowed us to purchase more paper and what other supplies he needed, including a large sun hat when I realised how quickly the sun was effecting his pale skin that first day of painting.

We had brought our meagre savings with us on the journey and there was enough for our basic needs but it was Victor's beach-side art that allowed us to live and eat for most of our time there. Word about the artist who sold his work for a meal or a bottle of wine soon spread and before long we were receiving daily visitors from the most affluent suburbs of central Nice, keen to purchase a water colour by an artist they had never heard of but whose accent and appearance were eccentric enough to make for a good story.

And Victor's appearance was certainly something to behold. He took to wearing his kaftan, or a large flowing shirt, with his oldest, paint-speckled trousers and often left his hair to hang loose under his wide-brimmed hat rather than in its usual oiled tail. His hair, as always, framed his face perfectly, curling gently around his prominent cheek bones and pointed chin and adding to his beauty, which in turn added to the money he made from those who saw him at work.

We chatted as he worked, of everything and nothing, as lovers do, and I wrote as well, which he often had me read out to him, an experience that was embarrassing but also rewarding, for his smiles when I read to him shone brighter than the sunlight on the still waters and filled my heart to overflowing with affection. We still found ourselves finishing one another's sentences and thoughts - it was a habit ingrained in us by then - but it was not irksome and several of the local children took delight in hearing us speak so seamlessly as one, which gave us more pride than we had felt at any artist or intellectual previously impressed by our talent.

Once again I was waking each morning with a smile upon my lips, often to the vision of an already awake and eager Bauer, and at the end of only three months I had nearly one hundred poems and made the decision to publish them for the man I loved. I tracked down a local printing press and offered them all profit from any copies sold if they would but print a small booklet of my poems, and miraculously, they agreed. I published them under the initials G. R. rather than my full name, though I did give them our forwarding address, and a few weeks later the small volume arrived, bound in blue cardboard with cheap glue, but with my words to Bauer within, a single volume as a token of my love.

We had been together for four years by that point and decided to spend more money than we usually would with a dinner at one of the local restaurants. At the time it had seemed simple enough but on that day I suddenly felt that celebrating an anniversary of this kind was far more significant than I had first imagined. I wondered whether I should give the book to him before we left for the restaurant, or during the meal, or when we arrived home afterwards. I worried over whether giving a gift was appropriate or whether it would make me seem foolish. I began to panic that I was over-thinking the entire activity and that Bauer had not even remembered that it was indeed the anniversary of our meeting.

This panic increased when I walked in to our cottage, hiding my book clumsily behind me, and saw Bauer in the corner painting, naked from the waist up and with gouache paint smeared on his arms, chest and cheek. He had surely forgotten our dinner reservation, I decided, and felt my heart plummet when he did not even look up as I trod on the creaking floorboard by the door.

I took the book of poetry to the bedroom but did not know where to hide it, to hide my shame. I knew that Victor loved me, he told me daily and showed his affection readily when it was safe to do so but my self-doubt still declared that I must have misjudged something about our relationship and that our anniversary (which we had never celebrated before) was not a matter of importance.

I sat so long on the bed, staring at the blue cover and it's black printed title

_"__... with love"_

that I did not notice the light beginning to fade or hear the sound of Victor beginning to move about, cleaning his brushes and packing away his paints. When he opened the bedroom door I jumped violently in surprise, which made Victor jump in return, and I thrust my book under my pillow, turning guiltily away to try and explain that we did not need to go out after all, unless he wanted to.

But my words died upon my tongue at the sight of him, bare chested and paint smeared, looking at me with concern.

"Are you alright, Rosey?" he asked, stepping forward to place a hand to my forehead as though a fever would explain my strange behaviour. "Have you forgotten our dinner plans for tonight?"

"No," I replied, possibly too forcefully, for he startled, blinking at me in surprise and bringing a small smile to my lips. "I thought perhaps you had forgotten. But I did not wish to disturb you."

"Oh, my Rosey," he whispered to me affectionately, dipping his head to lay a kiss on the tip of my nose. "How could I forget? Never in my life have I spent such a span of years with one I love so well. It is an anniversary worth celebrating. I simply had to... finish something first."

I parted my legs so that he could stand between them, pulling him into my arms and resting my face against his chest as he cradled my head and stroked my hair lovingly, the pressure of his delicate fingers against my scalp sending a thrill down my spine and straight to my groin. I could feel an identical stirring in him as the fabric of his trousers began to press against my stomach with his increased arousal.

I nuzzled my way lower, pulling at the fastening of his pants as he began to twitch and pant in my arms.

"Rosey," he gasped in a voice that has been seared into my mind, full of need and desire and joy. "We do not have much time, Rosey. We are due at the restaurant soon and I am not dressed."

"There is time for this," I told him, freeing his erection from its confines and taking it into my mouth as Bauer moaned loudly and bucked forward.

His fingers tightened in my hair in a manner that I never tired of as I worked his arousal, sucking harshly whilst my hands squeezed his backside hard just enough to shock, not giving him a chance to pace his need or slow the spiraling desire within him. He moaned my name again and again, breathless and desperate as the heat of his member slid between my lips and against my tongue with ever increasing speed, increasing my own need even as I focused on his. He climaxed quickly, pulling at my hair and gasping as his body shook ferociously and I swallowed around him.

I did not release him until I felt the waves of pleasure recede and he gasped once more when I let his spent penis slip from my lips, and let out a ragged laugh at the intensity of his own orgasm. He tried to lower himself to his knees before me but I pulled him upwards into my lap to kiss him chastely before locking my eyes with his.

"Later," I promised him. "For now you must wash yourself quickly and dress or we shall miss our dinner entirely."


	13. Chapter 13

"A giraffe? You think that the head waiter looks like a giraffe?"

Victor, seated across from me at the table, giggled so uncontrollably that I worried that soon his soup would come spurting from his nose as he tried in vain to hide his laughter and maintain the appearance of ordinary dinner conversation. I was barely more composed than he and struggled to keep my own laughter quiet so as not to cause a disturbance, but seeing the light and magic in Bauer's eyes made me want to yell to the moon that I was in love and happy and the luckiest man in the world. Instead I finished my soup and watched as Bauer looked about the room at the various customers and staff, imagining what animals they might be.

I do not know why that particular question is one I remember, except that Victor's explanation - that the man was tall with an uneven tan - made perfect sense to me at the time. It was our game that night, to point out various people, say what animal we thought they would be in another life, and attempt to make each other laugh. It was a game born of necessity really, due to my inability to think of a single interesting word to say when sat at a dining table, but Victor turned my awkwardness into something marvelous until I almost forgotten to be afraid.

We had walked hand in hand to the restaurant that evening as the sun set over the distant horizon and Bauer had made us stop several times to take in the twilight colours, which meant that we were quite late to dinner, but relieved to find our table still available. I had chosen that particular restaurant after learning that it boasted some of the finest crab dishes in the district and I knew that, since coming to the coast, Victor had discovered a fondness for crab meat, seizing any opportunity to taste it, usually in a soup at our local cafe. I wanted to spoil him in every way that I was able and treating him to his new favourite dish was one way I could make his experience of life better and brighter, so I counted our coins and made arrangements with the chef.

When our empty bowls were taken by the waiter who may or may not have resembled a giraffe I began the game again, hoping to keep Victor occupied until his surprise main course arrived.

"And what about her?" I whispered to him. "The old woman in the corner? What animal would she be?"

"Her?" Victor whispered back, leaning forward until our faces were nearly touching over the centre of the table. "A goat," he said decisively. "Definitely a goat."

My laughter escaped in the form of a snort which made Bauer begin to chuckle and he bit his lip to hide his amusement.

"Victor," I whispered. "You cannot just call a woman a goat! Have you no respect for your elders at all?"

"You know I have not," he said darkly, though still smiling. "Not simply for being my elders in any case. Besides, she has the beard for it, she is most positively a nanny goat. That's a lovely thing. How dare you insinuate that she is anything but lovely!"

His mocking and dramatized scandal were too much for me and I leaned back in my chair and wrapped my arms around my ribs as I laughed silently, my face becoming unbearably red under the pressure of containing my hysterics. The diners around us glanced in our direction several times, they eating and talking quietly and obviously curious as to what was bringing forth such high spirits at our table, and I truly did not wish to disturb their meals or be obnoxious through loud behaviour, but it was a struggle when Victor was so very entertaining.

When our main meal arrived his demeanor changed entirely - from impish grin to open mouthed awe - as he looked at our plates, each with an entire baked crab upon it, seated on a bed of lettuce. When his eyes eventually rose from his plate to my face I felt I might actually burst, exploding into a multitude of iridescent bubbles, or some other impossible nonsense, for I felt that my body were not a large enough, or suitable vessel for how I felt toward him and how pleased I was that he was impressed and delighted by his meal.

"My Rosey," he said with soft amazement. "They are magnificent. They... they are surely us!" and here the grin began to creep back onto his lips. "If ever there were two creatures who so clearly resembled the ridiculous human beings that we are, it is these two!"

"We are crabs now?" I asked, smiling so wide that my jaw was beginning to ache.

"Obviously," he replied to me before frowning dramatically. "But what a fate we have met, my dear one. How sad. Yet they were together at the end and that was surely a comfort to them. And we shall redeem them," he told me, lifting his fork like a beacon. "They shall not have died in vain."

I laughed along with him, and we enjoyed our meal thoroughly, Bauer making the sort of appreciative sounds that no man should be allowed to make in public when his lover is so close and yet unable to do anything to relieve the frustration caused by such noises. But there was a strange sinking deep within my heart as well, for I could not help but sense the foreboding in such a statement. He had declared that the creatures were us, for whimsical reasons no doubt, yet the thought persisted that they had died together, and I realised that I hoped that one day we truly would meet their fate. Not in the near future, I had no desire to die young (and no desire for Victor's death at all) but I hoped that some day we would be able to pass from this life hand in hand, two peaceful old men who had earned their rest.

It was a disquieting thought to have on such a joyful night and I did my best to put it aside and focus on Victor's tremendous enjoyment of his dinner. He had not seen a real crab before and made sure that we were both ridiculously careful in dismantling the creatures' armor, refusing to let me crack the claws even, so that we both had to suck the tender meat from within like simpletons, which embarrassed me more than any of our other behaviour that evening - but he had good cause.

"What type of crabs are these?" he asked me as we neared the end of the meal. "Do they have a name?"

"Of course they have a name," I chuckled but he simply shrugged his shoulders, unashamed of his ignorance in such matters. "They are spider crabs. Did you enjoy it?"

I knew that he had, but still took pleasure in his contented smile and nod. He leaned back in his chair and sighed, folding his hands over his belly in a satisfied manner and gazing at me so lovingly that it brought a blush to my cheeks.

"Do you think," he said thoughtfully, "that the restaurant would object to me taking the shells home with me?"

I blinked in surprise and it was my turn to give a shrug through my curiosity was well and truly piqued.

"I don't see why not. But what do you intend to do with them?"

"Well," he smiled. "I cannot just leave them here, not when they were so very much the spirit of you and I. I shall make them into something, have no fear. For now I simply cannot bear the thought of their beautiful skeletons being thrown away."

I could not argue with that and neither could our waiter, who took the shells to the kitchen and rinsed them, dried them, and brought them out to us in a small box, earning him a dazzling smile from Bauer and as big a tip as we could afford to give.

The walk back to the cottage was slow as the streets were dark and uneven and Bauer was treading with extreme care so as not to fall and destroy his precious cargo, but we made it home eventually and he placed the box reverently onto the table before turning to place a sweet kiss upon my lips. I wanted to continue with our kisses but felt the anxiety return to my chest, tightening around my lungs and constricting my throat as I tried to determine when I should present Victor with the book that was still hidden beneath my pillow, or whether I should give it to him at all.

Looking back I can see how ridiculous such worry was, for Bauer had received so many poems and notes from me, accepting them with love and respect for my work and my feelings, and there was little real difference between giving him my verse on loose paper or bound in a booklet and yet... it felt different. It felt somehow more serious, more of a formal declaration of my intention to dedicate my life to him. And I was horribly afraid.

But Victor, as always, saved me from myself, although on this occasion he lifted me from my fear by drawing my attention to his own apparent worry.

He was biting his lip nervously and, having pulled the ribbon from his hair, was fussing with it even though to me it appeared to be sitting faultlessly.

"Are you alright?" I asked him and he looked up into my eyes, his own grey with apprehension, like an overcast sky.

"You will think I am a fool," he told me simply, and I wrapped my arms about his slender waist, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

"Never."

"You might," he argued. "I was not exaggerating when I told you I had never spent so long with a person who I loved and who loved me in return. And I have been so happy here and... I may have made you a present."

My heart fluttered at hearing this and I pulled him more firmly toward me, overwhelmed at how closely we mirrored one another, not just in movement and mannerism but in thought and deed also.

"I may have made you a gift as well," I told him and saw the joy swell within him until he smiled up at me with such intense love that I very nearly cried. "It is under my pillow."

He chuckled wickedly at that and began to tug me toward the bedroom but my eyes strayed to the corner where his latest paintings were hidden under a cloth and he huffed at me, obviously less than keen to hand over his own creation now that the moment had come. He continued to tug me toward the doorway as I attempted to maneuver him in the opposite direction and before long we were tussling and laughing and tripping over one another's feet in a clumsy slow dance that ended when we collapsed to the floor, our legs tangled so that I could do little else but submit to his tickling and prodding until I was on my back on the threadbare rug with Victor above me, licking his lips as he began to unbutton my waistcoat.

"What about my gift?" I asked him as he started on the buttons of my shirt, running his hands over my skin when he finally had my clothing out of the way, staring at me hungrily.

"This is part of it," he said seductively. "You would not let me before. _Later_, you said. Well, it is later now and I am a man of great determination."

"A crab of great determination, surely," I told him, squirming under his touch and the pressure of his crotch against mine.

"... Yes," he said after a moment of serious thought. "A crab of great determination. Walking sideways through the world. I like that very much."

He dipped down to kiss me, pressing his plump lips firmly against my thin ones and then turning his head so that his stubbled chin scraped against mine, leaving wet kisses along my cheek to my ear. The feel of his teeth grazing my earlobe caused uncontrollable shivers to course through me and he took advantage of my loss of control by forcing the clothing from my shoulders and maneuvering my body until I was suddenly naked beneath him, my shoes thrown across the room and my socks tossed into the air like streamers.

He began at arch of my foot, kissing and licking his way upwards, swapping from one leg to the other as he sent thrills through my skin, his finger nails, as bitten and ragged as always, scratching up the outsides of my shins and thighs, catching on hairs and forcing gasps from my throat as my mind and body attempted to balance the harsh scratching with the delicate movement of his lips.

When he reached the sensitive flesh of my inner thighs he nipped teasingly with his lips and my hips twitched, my hard member bobbing about in a way that I would have found horribly embarrassing if I had not been so aroused. We had shared a bottle of wine over dinner but it was far more than alcohol causing my head to spin and my skin to heat and when he began to lap at my testicles I could not keep my eyes open or my voice quiet and began to moan wantonly as my body twitched and spasmed at his touch. He continued to lick until his tongue pressed against my perineum and I felt my hips lift, urging him on - though I did not even know what it was that I so desperately wanted from him.

His hands slid to my inner thighs, rubbing and gently pinching, and I spread my legs for him instinctively before it hit me that there was something that we could do, that I wanted him to do to me.

"Victor," I rasped but found that I did not know how to continue the question and that, when his tongue worked its way back up the length of my erection I _could not_ continue.

Instead I spread my legs as wide as they would go and lifted my hips from the floor as he took me into his mouth, and when that did not get the desired result I reached down to stroke his fingers with my own and pushed them downwards. I felt him chuckle around me, a sensation that I never grew accustomed to, no matter how often it seemed to happen (I prefer not to dwell upon the fact that he seemed to find our lovemaking amusing so often) but eventually he trailed his fingers down to my perineum and began to rub firm circles as he continued to suck.

My body felt aflame, the passion building in my belly until I let out a whimper, where upon he removed his mouth, and fingers, and laughed wickedly.

"Hold tight, my Rosey," he growled. "Are you asking for what I think you are asking, my love?"

I nodded desperately, biting my lip and squeezing my eyes shut tightly, not daring to see his face or what he might think of me. He pressed a quick kiss to my knee before rising and I heard him move quickly to the bedroom, returning a moment later. He knelt over me, leaning in to capture my mouth in a passionate kiss, his teeth pulling at my lip as he rubbed himself against me.

I groaned at the feel of his shirt against my bare skin, wanting to feel his skin against mine, his heat against my heat, but he laughed again and lifted himself from me, settling between my legs and drizzling oil over my aching length and lower, over my testes and further still. His fingers, slick and wet, slid between my buttocks and I felt my heart begin to drum against the cage of my ribs as he rubbed against my anus, coating it in oil until he was able to slid a finger inside of me.

It is a difficult thing to relate - not only because it was so intimate, that is not a great concern anymore - but because I have no way to adequately describe such a sensation, except that it was a feeling of fullness and completion. And it made me sob and buck my hips violently, bunching the rug in my fists, my fingers digging into the wood of the floor.

When he suddenly returned his mouth to my erection my sobs became strangled and I struggled to draw breath. He pushed his finger in as far as it would go and my back arched at the intensity and pleasure that was almost beyond bearable.

"Yes!" I cried. "That... Yes! Yes! Just like... That- that is..."

"Perfect?" he mumbled around my member.

"Yes! Oh god yes!"

He laughed again and that was all it took for me to topple over the edge of pleasure and into ecstasy and, as the waves of my orgasm began to recede, he removed his finger carefully, causing us both to whine at the loss of contact. He was so close to his own climax that all it took was for me to pull him down on top of me, his erection rubbing against my still spasming anus, and then he was orgasming, his seed hitting my opening and sending a secondary wave of pleasure through my body, extending my own orgasm and leaving me weak, twitching and covered in our combined release.

He continued to laugh, his forehead pressed to my chest and his nose poking against one of my ribs hard enough to make me squirm uncomfortably. But I could not escape from under him and his laughter was as infectious as ever and soon I was laughing like a madman along with him, until my lungs began to ache and I had to move, or else remain on the cold floor until morning.

Victor rolled away and stumbled to his feet, his trousers loose on his hips and his shirt hanging untucked and slipping from his shoulders, his eyes hidden by the dark hair hanging over his face but his smile still blinding. He was radiating nervous energy, bouncing from foot to foot and looking down at me as if he had already received the most amazing gift.

"I am ready to give you your painting now," he told me excitedly. "But we should wash our hands first. We are rather... sticky, and some of the paint may still be wet."

He dragged me to my feet, giggling at my protests that I was too old to be taken on cold, uneven floors, and kissing my protests away. But when we had washed each other, and I had pulled on my robe, I could suddenly find no words at all, for he was standing before me with the most glorious work of art held in his hands, a look of nervous hope on his face, still half hidden by his mussed hair.

I stared at the painting, still tacky and damp in places but complete and heart achingly perfect. There were splashes and shapes in half a dozen shades of blue invading layers of bronze and gold under a darkening sky and I fought back tears as I took it in.

"It is beautiful, Victor," I murmured. "It is our cove."

He smiled softly before looking down at his work, a blush creeping across his cheeks that only made me love him more.

"It is us," he said in a voice barely more than a whisper. "Well, it is our cove as well. The sea and the shore, the sun and the moon, earth and sky that seem separate and defined but are really so closely entwined and part of one another..." His voice trailed away pensively. "But you may tell people that it is our cove. The cove."

I stepped toward him and took his chin between my finger and thumb, lifting his face so that he could look into my eyes and I into his.

"It is you and I," I agreed, letting my lips press gently against his. "Oh, how I love you."

"And I you," he replied sweetly, before he nipped my bottom lip with his teeth. "Now where is my present?"

I chuckled as I lifted the painting delicately and carried it to our bedroom, placing it on the chest of drawers where I would be able to see it when I woke. Victor bounced merrily to our bed and fell among the tangle of blankets, pulling his shirt over his head and grinning at me cheekily as I turned to face him, fighting down the anxiety that simply would not leave me be.

I pulled the book of poetry out from under my pillow and handed it to him hurriedly, thrusting it into his waiting hands and sitting on the opposite edge to the bed, staring at the wall and hoping that he would not choose that moment to begin giggling again. Instead there was silence, followed by a small sob and I turned back quickly and saw him sitting in the centre of the bed, his lip wobbling and a tear rolling slowly over his pale cheekbone. The book was open to the first page, the dedication, and it took me a moment to recall what I had written.

_"__... with love... for my Bauer. Always."_

His face became pained and he held the book to his chest for a long moment before crawling across the mattress to kiss me desperately, forcing me down on to the bed and using his lips, tongue, teeth and hands to ignite my desire once again, each caress a thank you and an answer to my love.

And when I awoke the next morning Victor was sitting on the floor, naked save for the impish grin on his face, transforming the crab shells from our anniversary dinner into telephones. They did not work of course, for he used old pieces of metal that he had found in the cottage's wild garden, made to appear real through the skill of his painting, but he insisted that they were our private phones, with crab shell ringers and claw handsets, and recited one of my poems into his to demonstrate their value.

It was the most ridiculous concept I had ever encountered and so I picked up my own spider crab telephone and told him that I loved him, and nearly died in the sunlight of his smile.

_"__... with love... for my Bauer. Always."_

I meant those words, simple as they were, and I mean them still, but poetry, as much as it may reflect reality, is not a _true_ reflection of how the world works. You must remember that as a writer, that no matter what we put into words, our actions are what matter, they are what we shall live and die by. Nice was a magical place for the two of us - our escape, our poetry in an apathetic world - but all too soon the weather turned - summer was over and winter was drawing in. We packed our cases once again, bid farewell to the friends we had made, and to the small cottage with the overgrown garden, and returned to Paris. It was our home, but I suddenly felt a stranger there, and while Bauer returned with new vigor, new ideas, and restored confidence, I suddenly felt that my creative spark had been crushed. And so began nineteen thirty-six, the year which, when I look back upon it, was last year of our true peace.


	14. Chapter 14

Returning to Paris felt strange. It had been my home for my entire life and yet suddenly it felt like just another city, just a place like any other. A place that had little hold upon me. I suddenly wanted to travel, to see some of the places Victor had told me about in Switzerland and Italy, to travel further and experience places that were new to both of us, with Bauer by my side.

But travel was not as simple as it had once modern travel is now much swifter it also, to my old mind, seems a great deal more complicated, and by the beginning of nineteen thirty-six, the world had already changed enough that poor and frightened souls such as myself were almost incapable of traveling further than the journey from Paris to Nice and back again. The world was changing too quickly, and it frightened me. I lost my nerve.

It did not frighten Victor - it enraged him - but he was not fearful as I was. He was ever the brave one.

You told me at dinner yesterday evening that you felt on tenterhooks reading my memories, for I have mentioned often the storm that was building, and my inability to protect him and love him and understand him as I should have, but you must continue to be patient, I am afraid, for the story must be told in order - one cannot jump straight to the climax without understanding the characters' development - and so it shall be with this tale.

You also pointed out that an affair which lasted more that four years should hardly be called brief, which I suppose, for a young person such as yourself, may seem true. But I am an old man. I did not meet my Victor until I was thirty-five years old and I have lived too many years alone since our parting. My time with him amounts to barely a tenth of my life, a thin slice of my existence - and I used to pray that we would remain hand in hand for all times. And so I maintain that our affair was brief, for it was too short for me, and has left me ever thirsting for more, ever grieving, and never to be satisfied.

And now I do not know how to continue. I do not want to leave Nice but those happy memories are more painful in their way than the unhappy ones and so I must, though I do not know quite how to continue. The year that followed our vacation south is not one I have ever wanted to dwell upon.

Although, according to the historians, the war did not actually begin until nineteen thirty-nine, the tension in Europe was already at breaking point by thirty-six and France was a nation surrounded on all sides by fascist regimes and the threat of force and invasion was ever present. I found work at that time writing for the '_Front Populaire_', the coalition of parties that went on to form a new government in May of that year, work which ensured me a small wage and kept me from despairing the loss of my poetry too greatly by keeping my mind occupied, but the pain was still there. I could not write, could not imagine, could not put down one word and follow it with another and day by day my despair grew, quieted only when I was given notes from my employers and the task of turning their words into usable propaganda.

Bauer treated me gently, offering me tender, comforting touches as I struggled with my inability to write anything of meaning or insight. He understood, as an artist, the fear of losing one's creative spark and he watched me closely, grieved with me as and when it was needed, and continued to love me through that period of my life. I see now that it is the melancholic, depressive side to my personality that reared its head that year. There was no reason to it, no logic, and Bauer's own work became troubled and frantic in response as my creative block ate at me and painted my soul in tombstone gray.

Suddenly it was not Victor but I who hesitated at leaving the apartment, not for fear but simply because to do so seemed too overwhelming. I was more than content to write about the political climate and express clearly and eloquently what Leon Blum and the rest of his party wished me to about their political agenda, but I did not wish to talk about such things and it suddenly seemed that every man on the street had an opinion that needed to be heard and discussed... and I simply could not face it. It was too much effort. I let Bauer speak and debate in my stead and rarely left our rooms by day, except when specifically invited by the Surrealists, or when Victor pleaded with me.

We maintained our handholding - could not bare to do otherwise after the easy closeness we had been allowed down at the coast - but were forced once again to hide behind drama and artifice, and this time it was I who struggled to maintain the charade. I spoke less and less at public gatherings and it was remarked by some that I seemed less like Bauer's brother and more like his dog, gripping his hand and trailing after him wherever we went. I could not bring myself to care about their mockery, and Victor never forced me to be any more than I was able, even when I saw worry in his ever-wide eyes.

Sex was one of the few things that could awaken me from the fog of my half-existence and Victor treated my body with such care and adoration that often it made me weep - yet he never judged me. Even when civil war erupted in Spain and Bauer found himself involved in the lobby to give assistance to the republicans (a call which was not heeded, much to our nation's shame) he still found the time to be with me and give me what I needed, though I was not so adept at meeting his need for conversation and connection.

It is unsurprising that I did not notice at first that my Bauer had a new interest, a new intensity that drove him out of the house each morning. He would kiss me - the kind of kisses that are messy and cause jolts of need to erupt in one's belly at the sheer want and enthusiasm of them - but would end the kiss with an instruction that I try to wash and not drink all of the vodka or wine, before he hurried out the door. I would be left cold in his absence and, though it may be a hard thing to understand, without his directions I truly would have struggled to make up my mind to bathe and dress. Often when he returned I was clean but still naked and he would look into my eyes and see the pain in my heart and head that neither of us had a hope of understanding.

On those days he would lower me carefully to our bed, kissing me softly as his fingers ran over my skin - so well know to him by then - and I would lie back and let him move my body like a rag doll. Often he would turn me over on to my stomach and pour oil over my back and buttocks, massaging the needless stress from my muscles before spreading my legs and using his fingers to bring me to the brink of orgasm. Sometimes he would roll me back over so that he could rub his erection against mine to find our release together. Other times he would simply stop, leaving my body thrumming with need as he removed his fingers from inside of me, despite my whimpers, and sit between my legs, his breathing harsh and uneven. I could never see his face when this happened but I could feel that within himself Victor feared that there was something precious that was about to be shattered if he did not tread more carefully. Often my desperation would spur him back into action, thrusting his digits in and out of me with increasing force that ended in a violent orgasm. He would continue to thrust his fingers in to me until he achieved release by his own hand and I was left overstimulated and boneless in the centre of the bed, the covers beneath me wet with my seed and my back wet with Victor's.

Then there were times when he would continue his ministrations but with aching care, working his fingers inside of me until the pleasure was a frustrated ache, never increasing his pace, forcing me to wait patiently until my body was overwhelmed by the slowness and gentleness of his assault and my orgasm, when it happened, was somehow far off, distant, a finish but without satisfaction. On those days I would roll myself over and pull him desperately to me, taking his member into my mouth and encouraging him to hold my head tightly as he thrust into me, my own true release coming when his orgasm jolted and shuddered into me.

Whatever we did together, he always took me in his arms at the close, offering comfort and unconditional love.

"My Rosey," he would murmur to me, his slender body pressed against my older, spreading one, as he pressed heartfelt kisses to the slope of my shoulders. "Come back when you are able, Rosey. Find your way home to me, my love. I shall be waiting, past the darkness... I love you, Rosey. Come home."

I felt so ashamed of my weakness, a man reduced to a creature who could barely function, but together we were eventually able to climb from that pit, broken and bleeding within our souls but alive. Through Victor I regained myself, but it was a year of my life lost, and I do not wish to dwell upon it. Violette tried to help me, as did several of the gentlemen of the Surrealists who recognised the symptoms of my self-destruction, but I pushed them all away, wanting only Bauer, an act that I now see was incredibly selfish, yet he stayed, and after a year and some months had past I finally began to feel strength within myself again.

It began with a simple verse of four lines. I awoke to their form swirling in my mind, a sensation I had all but forgotten, and quickly rose from the bed to write them down. Bauer was at his easel by the window, using the first rays of the morning to paint by, with not a stitch of clothing upon his person. He looked somehow more than human that morning, the light giving his pale skin a golden glow, highlighting the planes and curves of his body, and his prominent bones. I could see them shift beneath his skin as he moved about, wielding his paintbrush - he had lost weight again - a fact I had not noticed or had concern for but which now caused a twinge of worry to rise in my gut.

I wrote out my poem quickly, scribbling it on to a scrap of paper before it could allude me, and when I looked up I realised that Bauer had not yet noticed me. I crept across the room but he was so engrossed in his work that he did not see or hear me until I lay the paper, and it's four simple lines, down next to his water jar. He looked up, not quite surprised as much as intrigued by my presence, and then a smile spread across his worn face and his eyes began to fill with tears at the sight of me. It was so very humbling and I made the promise to myself in that moment that I would regain myself for his sake.

He read my words and kissed my lips and then, before I could think of a word to say to him, he was in my arms, paint smearing both of our chests as his colour laden brush was trapped between our bodies. And it made me laugh. A vague, silent sort of laugh, but a laugh none the less. And Bauer kissed me again, his passion rising and his joy flowing into me like wine as his tongue tangled with mine and his warm body pressed hard against me.

He dragged me over to the armchair, our lips still locked together, and pushed me into it, climbing into my lap to continue the work of him mouth. But between kisses he began to speak, mumbling ideas and thoughts and pieces of news and things he had seen and I realised, as the numbness slowly ebbed from my mind, how very much he had missed speaking with me, and our meandering conversations, and that suddenly he could not hold in his words or his emotions. I took his face lovingly in my hands and held it back from my own face, so that his lips were separated from mine, and the words spilled forth from him as I kissed his cheeks and throat. His chest was shaking against me as he spoke, his words interspersed with sighs and gasps as I laved at his tender neck with my lips and tongue, but he knew that I had given him leave to talk, and so he did, and I felt as if I were relearning his person, in both mind and body, and it was glorious.

He had been busy in my absence. It was nineteen thirty-seven, almost his birthday again, and he had done a great deal in the light of the political instability our government was facing. He was one of the few who had thought to help those who had fled the Spanish civil war and even as our own supply of food had dwindled he had been hard at work arranging for food and clothing to be sent to the refugee camps, selling his art work to fund the charity, and I was astonished, but there was more to come.

"Otto," he whispered breathily, and my lips stilled against his heated skin.

"Your father?"

He nodded and I felt something horrible begin to rise up within me, a desperate urge to protect my Victor and seek retribution against the man who should have loved him most dearly and yet had not. But Bauer shook his head and nuzzled in against me, his lips seeking me out and kissing along my cheek until his nose rubbed against mine, like a cat seeking affection.

"Do not think that," he murmured. "It is not as you suppose."

"Why did you not tell me of this?" I asked him, trying to maintain a clam I did not feel. He shrugged.

"I did not want to alarm you at first. And I did not know whether he would try to contact me, or wish to know me. I had no desire to be the one who sought him out... when I discovered that he had come to Paris." I grunted at that but he hushed me and I held him tightly as he continued. "I did not tell you because I did not want to cause a fuss if it came to nothing, and then when he did contact me I did not want to tell you of him until I had decided whether it was worth it for me to do so. You have been... preoccupied, my love. You have been unwell, and I did not wish to add to your burdens."

"Burdens," I echoed and felt him nod his head, his dark hair tickling my neck and shoulder, bringing to my attention how much his hair, and mine, had grown.

"Yes, my love," he told me, capturing my lips in a lingering kiss before continuing. "You have been so unwell, but I think perhaps you are beginning to recover now?"

I certainly hoped I was and felt the relief flow through his thin body when I told him so, but I needed to know how the situation between he and his father stood before I could begin to fathom my own state.

"Why has he come to Paris?" I asked, not wishing to use the name of the man who did not deserve either the title of father or to share a name with my beloved Bauer. "What has made him believe he is worthy of speaking to you again?" I asked bluntly.

"He is dying," he responded with equal frankness, shrugging his shoulders and pulling away from me so that I was forced to confront the war of emotions battling across his features. "He will soon be dead and feels his work is not done."

"And what is that to us?" I asked, my irritability growing further when I read the answer upon his face. "No," I cried. "No. He will not put you to work. You shall not be slave to his bidding. Not after all this time."

"But Rosey," he whispered as his eyes slid away from mine to stare at the curve of his knee against my thigh. "He feels remorse, he has said as much, and-"

"Has he said so much in words?" I pressed, feeling more awake than I had in months but also much closer to panic when I considered the situation and Victor's fragility when faced with his childhood hurt and desire to be the sort of son his father might have actually wanted.

"Not as such," Bauer confided reluctantly. "But I can feel it in him, Rosey. He has been more than civil to me, impressed by my political connections, he-"

"-should not be trusted," I finished for him but he shook his head.

"He has confided in me all that he did as a member of the Italian resistance before he was forced to flee. I am sure that he is being honest in his opinions and only wishes for my help in maintaining his correspondence with his contacts in Milan. Please, Rosey."

I was not entirely sure what he was asking of me, begging from me, but I relented and held him close once more, stroking my hand down his spine as he breathed deeply against the crook of my neck. I became aware once again of just how thin he had become, his skin as delicate as tissue paper against my large palm as I held him and, after a long period of stillness between us, he resumed his kisses, his movements becoming fevered and desperate, sweat beginning to slick his chest where it was pressed to mine.

It was the first time in over a year that I had been the one to guide our actions and it was enlivening. I had rediscovered my purpose - to protect and love Victor Bauer - and even though my journey toward recovery of mind and spirit was a long one, on that day I knew that it needed to be done. Bauer had cared for me, loved me, kept me alive, but now he needed me. Because he was, despite his sharp wit and sharper mind, still naive when it came to malice and those who might lie to him and do him evil in return for his goodness. He would need my cynical distrust and fear to deal with his father, and when I met the man, after we had retired back to bed for some time, then bathed and eaten a late breakfast, my fear increased.

Otto Bauer was a man of great charisma and psychological power and it was obvious that Victor still worshipped him, despite what he had done. He was a man who could send his own son into the lion's den, and in to death.

He was the man who did.


	15. Chapter 15

As I was informed this afternoon that giving you those pages only three hours ago was not the generous gift I believed it to be, and that pausing the story where I did was not acceptable, I have set about to write for you the next chapter in our sorry tale, though you may regret learning of it. You questioned also my lack of detail, and asked me how I could write so little about an entire year, but the simple truth remains that I was locked within the prison of my own mind for those months, almost twenty in total, and could not see out to save myself. And my recovery was not a sudden thing, a snap decision or miracle cure, oh no. It was nothing so simple. For months I still spent one day in three fighting to rise from my bed, struggling to recall whether I had washed or eaten,hindered by the disturbing turn our lives took over that year, but I had a goal in life now - to protect my Bauer at all costs - and, word by word I slowly found myself able to write again, though my poems reflected my fractured state of mind. And I returned to the world, if somewhat altered.

But I am certain that you have little time for such troubles when there is yet another villain to reveal, and he was such a villain in my eyes, and remains so still. Otto Bauer, when I met him, was small and frail looking, victim to a wasting disease that his doctors had long washed their hands of. He should not have been an imposing figure, weak and dying as he was, save that his eyes were like burning coals, and that the structure of his face bore a heavy similarity to Victor's - like a rough, early sketch to a finished masterpiece - his nose straight and unbroken, his cheek bones less defined, and his eyes as dark as Victor's were light, yet the similarities were there. He held the last vestiges of a handsome man, whilst Victor was in full bloom - was beautiful.

I was taken to his sick room the following day (after I had washed and shaved and Bauer had spent some twenty minutes calming my nerves with soft words) and when we arrived it was immediately apparent that Otto Bauer felt his current accommodation to be inadequate. He had not been pleased to see me, which gave me a great deal of pleasure, and had attempted to speak to Victor in his native tongue that I might be unable to understand, but Victor had held my hand firmly and replied to him only in French. This was no small gesture, for I knew that it hurt Victor to think that he had earned his father's wrath, but during that initial visit, whenever I felt my lover's strength beginning to waver, I gave his hand our three customary squeezes - _I. love. you._ \- and saw Victor square his shoulders and raise his chin each time, fighting against the venom of his father's snide insinuations.

Yet he said nothing against the man, even when he was called the most vile names, insults he was paid because I stood with him, holding his hand, thus confirming the truth of Victor's sexuality.

"Frau," he said with slow venom, reclining in his bed and glaring at his son with intense hate, and in return Victor simply shook his head.

"No father. He is my..." I watched as he searched for the best way to describe our relationship but offered no suggestion to help him. I saw later how difficult it must have been for Victor, wanting redemption from his father but at the same time painfully aware of my fragile state of mind. He did not wish to admit himself to his father, but neither did he wish to deny what I was to him and he clenched his jaw against the sorrow of it. "He is my partner in art and in life, and my closest friend, but we do not..." His voice petered out once again and I felt sick that he was so humbled by a man who had no right to question him.

"You are a pervert," Otto responded darkly, eyeing our clasped hands as he spoke, but I refused to let go of Victor's fingers. "You always have been. You have broken God's law. You are too steeped in evil to make amends for your soul."

"No-"

"Yes!" Otto barked in his thick, Austrian accent, silencing his son even as his fragile ribcage rattled and heaved. "And it has been a burden on me, knowing what you have become. This disease is my punishment. You are killing me."

"No..."

"Yes," he whispered, his voice suddenly soft to match Victor's but his eyes still hard and sharp. "And so my work will go unfinished, the battle left and the war against fascism lost."

"Surely I could..."

Victor's voice was less than a whisper and the shame I heard in it caused my chest to ache and my blood to heat, for how dare he be made to suffer. I watched as the storm of emotions flickered across his face, unsure of how I could proceed, not wishing to make the situation worse, but my indecision was our undoing.

"Surely you could, what?" Otto sneered. "Surely you could do your duty, Victor? Victor? _Surely_ you have thought over what we discussed the last time. I ask so little of you. You _will_ give me what I ask so that I may rest soundly when my time comes."

"Yes... father," Victor breathed, his face pale, his voice a breath and skin around his eyes tight with worry and something more, something I could not read.

And so we left. Otto snapped a command at his son and Victor took up a sheaf of papers from the bedside and nodded several times, releasing my hand in order to gather up the scribblings of his father and keeping his eyes downcast in an attempt to avoid the sardonic grin of Otto Bauer.

My relief at leaving that room was so intense that I felt light-headed and, when we exited into the street I leaned against the building's wall to draw in deep, calming breaths as beside me Victor did the same.

"Well..." I said eventually, staring at the sky, scattered with clouds as if it could not decide whether it should be bright or stormy - an idea which for some strange reason annoyed me greatly.

"Well," Victor replied, and his voice was heavy. "That did not go well at all."

We walked back to our apartment in silence, though the journey took half an hour and I was bursting with questions and fears. The sun, when it appeared, felt good against my skin and warmed me almost as much as Victor's body pressed close to mine as we walked the narrow backstreets to our home, but it was not enough to balance the fatigue that was beginning to overwhelm me once more. I had been out of doors for a little over two hours and yet I felt more drained than the days when we had used to walk the whole day around the city, visiting friends and viewing galleries. I craved my bed, and Bauer's warm body in my arms, but now knew that such a desire could not to be indulged at every moment, for Victor needed more from me, and as difficult as it was to be what he needed, I knew it had to be done, and fought with myself to make it so.

"I take it your last meeting with him went more smoothly?" I asked when we were through the door and Victor had shed his coat.

He grunted and crossed straight to the stove to prepare a pot of coffee and a large part of my mind urged me to let him be, to quit, to close my mouth - and yet I did not, because what I had seen in that sickroom had frightened me more than my own self-defeating nightmares and I needed to know.

"Victor-"

"Argh!"

Bauer swore viciously as he whipped his finger away from the flame below the coffee pot and I rushed to his side, grasping his hand in mine and sucking the injured finger into my mouth. It caused a shiver to rush through him and his eyes slid closed as I curled my tongue over the burned digit, trying to ease the pain yes, but also desperate to show him that I was there for him, and could help him to ease the tension that threatened to snap his thin body in two.

"My Rosey," he groaned, his eyelids fluttering and colour rising in his cheeks.

He had been so very pale during the meeting with his father and on the journey home, and it was a relief to see his cheeks return to their usual pink, but then the colour deepened and I realised that his body was flushing with more than just the relief at being free from his father's gaze.

I hummed around his finger until he moaned desperately, the noise strangled and needy, and when he urged me to my knees before him I did not hesitate, taking him in almost greedily, a surge of joy rushing through me along with his orgasm. It was fast and hard and the act left us both panting, his hands clutching at the kitchen cupboard and my forehead pressed to his thigh. He tried to speak but his breathing was too ragged and he eventually gave it up, instead sliding down to the floor to hold me tight to his chest, lips pressing dry kisses to my lank curls whilst I listened to the frantic beating of his heart.

Even when he had recovered himself Victor made no further effort to speak and we spent the remainder of the day wrapped in a silence that gradually became comfortable but not comforting. We cooked a simple meal, ate it in bed, stripped, kissed, and slept, and it was not until the morning that followed, when I was woken by the sound of rain against our window, that Victor finally told me what he felt so bound to do.

I watched his face, so beautifully carved and perfectly lit by the grey light, and listened as he explained that his father expected him to not only write and encode but actually deliver his secret letters to his contacts within both the Spanish and Italian resistance movements. He was obviously conflicted and I could see the pain, fear, obligation and shame etched into the lines of his brow, but there were other emotions there as well, only less clearly defined, and it troubled me that I could not identify them. My brain felt hazy, my eyes unfocused in a way that had nothing to do with my sight, and I found that I could not put forth a coherent argument against such madness.

"But it is dangerous," I pointed out stupidly, but he only sighed and pulled the covers more tightly about his shoulders.

"It is a cause I believe in. Socialism is the only defense against the monster of fascism, I believe this with my heart. How can I sit comfortably idle when the fight is at our doorstep? Despite the chaos that is our own government, France is still more stable than all of her neighbours. Italy is in the clutches of fascists, Spain is falling to them, Germany has embraced something even more frightening and has designs upon her smaller sisters, and Austria simpers and does whatever Germany commands. They have dropped bombs on Spanish civilians, Rosey! Innocent people are dying while Germany tests new weapons and parades about at her borders, showing off her might. We alone are the voice of reason and Otto is right, we _must_ do what we can! _I_ must..."

His speech had been passionate to the point that tears began to blur his vision and he blinked his eyes furiously, wetting his cheeks and lashes as his words trailed away bitterly. And I believed him. War was returning, we all felt it now, but I could not see why he should be involved, why he should risk himself when the danger was inevitable.

"What can you do?" I asked him, unable to summon any passion to my own voice. "You are one man, Victor. What can you do against armies and weapons and bombs?"

"I must try," he begged me softly, fresh tears tumbling from his eyes. "I must. For..."

"For Europe or for Otto?"

His eyes closed at that, and I knew I had hit at the heart of his pain, and his desire. He pursed his lips into a thin line, their usual red turning pale as he fought to justify his actions but I knew that whatever he told me was the result of a lifetime of neglect and his desperate desire to be loved and accepted by his father. It frightened me that Victor had so quickly fallen back in thrall of his father, despite the man's treatment of him, and I resolved to accompany Victor to all future meetings with the man, as hard as they would surely be. It became one of my reasons to dress in the morning and my anger at Otto Bauer sparked the rebirth of my other emotions, but on that grey Spring morning even my anger was a new and flickering thing, and I was near to being overwhelmed by the despair I felt at seeing my Bauer's self-loathing and guilt.

"I must make amends," he told me. "Otto is right. I am a stain on our family's name, he is right to hate me. He is dying because of me... because of what I am... I must at least try."

I pulled him close to my chest as he began to weep, stroking his silken hair and trying to hold my own tears at bay as I willed my brain to think more clearly, for both our sakes. It was obvious to me (thanks to Bauer's books on psychoanalysis which I had read when I could find nothing else to hold my attention) that a part of Victor had regressed in the face of his father's reappearance in his life. He was being emotionally manipulated and even his vast intelligence could not safe guard him when it was his heart that was being ensnared so tightly. He could not be reasoned with and my brain was in no fit state to do any real reasoning.

"Very well," I told him eventually, barely recognising the rust of my own voice. "We shall do his bidding. But we shall do it together."

And so we did. We were ordered to tell no one of our plans but Violette knew, and disapproved, Jana knew and took it upon herself to care attend to Otto when we were absent, and many of those in our social circle suspected that our strange disappearances and sudden reappearances were connected to the rising tensions at the borders, though it was never spoken of directly.

We travelled once a month, to either Andorra and the Spanish refugee camps that huddled there, or to the camps that had sprung up on Italian border near Braincon, and soon built up our own networks to ensure that messages and news were passed reliably over international lines. Some times we went as ourselves - two traveling artists seeking inspiration. Other times we were antique dealers with thin moustaches and Swiss accents, other times again we were brothers on a journey to find our Spanish mother, or a married couple on an extended honeymoon. Victor particularly enjoyed that story - dressing up and wearing his long hair in feminine braids and twists atop his head, batting his eyes at me whenever we were stopped near the border and questioned. It was one of his greatest disguises, for no one suspected a woman of passing secrets or fueling plots - at times he was near invisible when dressed so completely as a woman - but such a disguise held dangers too.

On one particular evening, as I sat by the edge of a camp on the French-Italian border, smoking a cigarette and trying to appear nonchalant as I waited for Victor to return from his rendezvous with a contact in the Resistance, I heard a scream that was unmistakable and made my heart begin to pound with such force that I feared I would faint. I ran toward the sound, hearing further shouts and the sound of a scuffle as I approached and then, finally, found the place where Victor lay on the open ground between the camp and the official border. There were two men - Italian soldiers. One had forced Victor's contact to the ground, a knee to his spine as he yelled that he was a traitor, whilst the other had done the same to Victor, grasping at his braided hair and leering in a manner that made the vomit rise in my throat.

"My wife!" I yelled to them, summoning what little Italian Bauer had been able to teach me. "You have found her! God bless you! Brothers, come quickly, she is found!"

Victor was immediately released when I called over my shoulder to my imaginary reinforcements, but the noise had in truth brought a few others running from the camp, though they stayed back from the border and the men with rifles. The soldier pushed my 'wife' roughly toward me and I took hold of him, feeling the intense trembling of Victor's body against my own, and embracing him in a way that was obviously very convincing.

The soldiers turned on their other captive then, kicking him and demanding to know his name and who he worked for and Victor and I fled, hating our cowardice in leaving our Italian comrade at the mercy of such men but knowing that there was nothing we could do for him, and that our own safety was precarious.

"Thank you for coming when you did," Victor whispered to me when we were safely back in the small tent we had erected at the far end of the make-shift border town. "He wanted to... make use of me, you know. He told me as much. And I... well..." he panted shallowly before finally taking control of his body and his voice, "just imagine the disappointment if he had actually lifted my skirt."

"Disappointment?!" I spluttered, taking his face firmly in my hands and searching his features for some clue to his true meaning. " Do you know what he would likely have done to you? You think it would have stopped at disappointment?!"

"Well, obviously," he replied with a shaky voice a shakier smile. "I am circumcised after all. And Jews are not exactly popular just now. I think he should have been deeply disappointed, don't you?"

I had laughed at his words, hysterically, uncontrollably, for the only other option was admitting how close we had come to very real danger, and I could hear the terror in Victor's own laughter and how grateful he was that I chose to play along with his nonsense rather than dwell on the peril we had so narrowly avoided.

We made it a game, to preserve our sanity and to hold back the fear, but it was a difficult business and I began to see that the world was more cracked than I had supposed. Everywhere we went we saw signs to military action and destruction, death and disease and fear, and I began to suffer attacks of anxiety and panic on a near daily basis at the memory of the refugee camps we visited, secret missives being handed out along with blankets and socks.

Victor lived on his nerves, his body vibrating with adrenaline when we were on a mission, then collapsing the second we returned to Paris, and I knew that we would not be able to continue long. We were artistes rather than spies, but nothing I could say or do would convince Victor that he needed to stop. Only Violette was able to do that.


	16. Chapter 16

I dreamed of him last night.

I dreamed of those treacherous journeys and the nights we spent in that abysmal tent, and of how it should have been miserable, yet somehow Victor made it something better. I dreamed of making love in the cramped space of our tent and how Victor would whisper the most ridiculous things in my ear as he teased my body. Erotic things, stories he had made up in his head to explain what we were doing in the context of the characters we had adopted. There were ludicrous stories to explain why brothers or business partners or 'friends' would find themselves in such a risqué position, designed to make me laugh and squirm. When we were ourselves he recounted the story of the first night we met and how hard he had worked to seduce me (according to his tale of events), and how much he had lusted after me- and the humour of the stories, as well as the erotic detail, gave us both a way to relax and laugh in a situation that was often perilous.

But last night, in my dreams, he was above me, his body golden in the light of our small lamp, the canvas of the tent orange as it curved above him, and his face - rather than obscured by the fall of his hair - was exposed and open to me, for his dark locks had been wrapped over the crown of his head in a braid, just as he had worn when he posed as my wife. He should, by rights, have looked preposterous dressed in a cream blouse and deep blue skirt. He should not have been able to do such things with his hair. But his mother had worn her hair in such a fashion, he told me, and the style was simple enough to replicate once one knew the trick. The clothing was Jana's, altered to fit, and the wedding band on his finger, not true gold at all but a theatrical prop, had been a gift from his beloved chorus girls. He should not have looked so very much like a woman - and yet his sex was never questioned.

And when he was dressed in such a way - as my wife - the stories he would weave for me, whispered breathily against my ear as he ground his erection in to mine beneath his skirt, his chest bare and heaving... they haunt me.

I thought that I would be able to pass over those events but it seems I cannot, his memory will not allow me to. I have not thought of those times for so many years and yet suddenly they are with me, and my heart is clutched with a longing that... reminds me too greatly of my depression, and I do not wish it to return. You have seen the marks left upon my body, you know what it did to me the last time - how close I came. It has caused me a great deal of panic these past few hours, the depth of my resurfaced desire because, though I find it painful to admit, being told Victor's ridiculous stories of our supposed wedding day, of our meeting, our wedding night, of the home we were to return to as husband and wife, affected me far more than any of his other bedroom stories. Because deep within me I should have loved to have been truly and openly married to Victor. I know it seems bourgeois to wish for a wedding s well as ridiculous to wish to marry a man, but perhaps one day it shall be a reality, in your life time if not mine.

All I shall have is the scrape of his false wedding band over the skin of my chest, the sound of his breathy gasps as he pressed against me, the pattern that the lines of his forehead made as he neared his peak, the scratch of his woolen skirt against my thighs, the slick of my erection against his, the way the flickering candle light danced, the press of his lips against mine as he called me husband...

I hated those journeys, those '_missions_' as Victor called them, for a great number of reasons and yet, those memories... those I cannot hate. But I was pleased when those months finally came to an end.

Everywhere we went we saw men in military uniform, wielding guns that, for the most part, I did not recognise. I had wanted to see more of the world, but not like that, and when I saw artillery at the the Italian border - missile launchers so similar to those I had been in training to use during the last war - I almost lost consciousness, so intense was my panic. I needed to stop, but I could not let Victor continue on his own, which he surely would have done, for with each letter successfully delivered, and letters received in return, his father offered him slight praise and the suggestion of redemption, but he held Victor ever on tenterhooks and reminded him that his relationship with me was his undoing.

Secretly I wished that the old man would simply die, but he lingered spitefully, and I began to despair. I dread to think what would have happened if Violette had not stepped in and worked her magic upon us yet again. She rescued us both several times in her restrained, considered way, and was a better friend than I deserved - and was the friend that Victor needed. She had a way of speaking to him that reminded me of a mother speaking to a young child, not in a patronising way, but as one who loves their child very dearly and wishes to instruct whilst also building the child's confidence. She was blunt when reprimanding me (which was often) but careful with Bauer and when we returned home late one evening, our train having been delayed some three hours and the bus that took us from the border territory of Vallée d'Aoste delayed five hours before that, she used Victor's exhaustion to her advantage.

"I saw the light at your window," she said by way of greeting when I answered the knock at our door. "I thought you might need checking on."

Her eyes swept over my face, taking in my exhaustion and the new lines etched into the skin around my eyes from fear and worry, before moving on to Bauer, who was seated in the armchair, his head in his hands and his thin body obvious even beneath his clothing.

"Would you like a drink?" I asked her when Victor failed to respond to her appearance and Violette turned to me with a smile which was both sad and loving and nodded her head.

"I brought wine," she said. "And bread and cheese. Getting hold of anything more than that is proving difficult just now," and then in a low whisper, "is he alright?"

"Tired," I answered, which was rather an understatement and her raised eyebrow was a silent command for more information, which I gave her readily. "Our bus was boarded by soldiers. They were looking for someone, I think. They dragged Victor out of the bus because they doubted his passport." I shrugged. "It was a fake so it is hardly surprising. They roughed him up but their commanding officer announced that he did not match the picture of their man so they eventually left."

My words were impassive and Violette scowled. I could see the reprimand on her lips but was too exhausted to care. I had been petrified when it had happened and it had only been the rifle aimed at my chest that had stopped me running after Victor when he was pulled from his seat and out on to the road, but when he returned, covered in dust and grazes, a trickle of blood seeping from his hairline, he had refused my help, refused to be touched or to have his cuts tended to, and had not looked at me until we arrived at the train station, and his eyes when I _had_ seen them had been dull and grey.

I was taken by surprise when Violette hugged me but did not resist when she put her arms around me and began to slowly run her hand up and down my back, gentle and soothing. I melted into the sensation and felt my own exhaustion begin to take over but knew that I could not bear to sleep, for I had not eaten in over a day.

Violette guided me to a cushion by the chair and my legs collapsed with the slightest encouragement, my back leaning against Bauer's leg and his hand creeping in to my hair to stroke at my bedraggled curls. She sighed at the two of us but neither of us had the strength to look up at her or tell her anything further and so she cut us bread and poured the wine and let us eat before she tried to speak.

"This must stop," she said simply, her own voice drained. "It is becoming too dangerous, Victor. You must tell your father-"

"It is fine!" Victor snapped, and I looked up in surprise.

"It is not fine," Violette responded wearily. "You have dried blood in your eyebrow. Gui has lost weight, as have you. Every month you return with some tale of how you barely escaped capture, and for what? What could your father possibly be sending that is so important?"

Victor looked up at her with a look that was both pitiful and pleading and I saw Violette's anger waver.

"Has... has Rosey truly lost weight?" he asked in a small, childish voice and my soul bled, for he had lost more than I and his face was indeed still smeared with blood from his ordeal with the border patrol.

Violette nodded solemnly, knowing how to best get through to him, and Victor looked down at his hands ashamedly.

"My sweet one," she said, kneeling by him and placing a hand to his knee, "I know you want to be a good son to your father, but... Surely you have done enough? What can he possibly be writing that requires his only child to deliver it in person?"

"I cannot..." Bauer's voice wavered and I saw in his eyes that he was trying to decide whether or not to break his silence - a silence he had kept even from me. "... I... he has been receiving leaked information from the Italian government, their plans and the details of their soon to be signed pact with Germany. And he passes that information on to members of our own government (at a price, I believe). He himself is a General in the Italian Resistance Movement. They plan to overthrow Mussolini. He sends orders. He hopes the Spanish will be his allies. He... needs me."

I clenched my eyes shut against the pain of his revelation but Violette pulled Victor to his feet so that she could hug him fiercely.

"It was your birthday two months past, Victor. Did your father wish you a merry day? Did he celebrate? Did he know?"

"He... That isn't important," Victor murmured, and I heaved myself up so that I too could embrace my love, who seemed far too fragile to be living such a life.

"Not important?" Violette whispered mournfully, and I wrapped my arms around her as well, pulling them both into a tight hold. "Do you believe that?" she asked despairingly. "And in three months, Victor. Will you allow us to celebrate with you your anniversary? Seven years between yourself and Gui. Is that important to you?"

"Seven years?" he mumbled in shock, and I must admit that I too was taken aback to realise that we had been together so long.

I felt as if no real time had passed since our months at Nice, let alone three years, and yet it was the summer of nineteen thirty-eight, I was a man in my forties, and the time I should have spent enjoying and worshipping my Bauer had been spent in fear and worry and survival. I hated myself for my weakness and my failure. I still do. And if it had not been for Violette we might have continued on in the same fashion with no final moments of grace or joy.

"Seven years, Victor," Violette confirmed. "Is that not worth celebrating?"

"But," within the circle of my arms I felt him tense and pulled my arms around him tighter. "You cannot tell my father of that, Violette, you cannot. It would be our undoing. He would not keep such a secret, he would be disgusted, he would... he has made it clear what he thinks of me and my... _he will shame me, Violette, please_. _Don't?_"

"Oh, Victor," Violette said in a voice that was almost a sob. "I would never do that to you. No more than I would reveal you and Gui to Breton or Perez, or to anyone else for that matter. I would not dream of it. But surely the fact that your father does not respect who you are, and does not acknowledge your birthday or the relationships dearest to your heart, is evidence that he is using you. You said once that he hated you and that you could not think of him as your father... has anything changed since then, really? He is using you, Victor, and you must be free of him."

He said nothing in response but his shoulders shook with his silent sobs and Violette's face shone with her own tears as I held them both. I knew that the pain being inflicted was necessary, and that Victor needed to come to terms with what his father was doing to him, but that did not stop me from wishing to save him from suffering. With Violette's assistance I maneuvered him into bed and removed his clothes, hissing at the bruising on his ribs from where the soldiers had kicked him. He made no attempt to help or hinder me, his eyes were shut but he did not sleep for tears still streamed over his cheeks and into his hair and his lip was caught painfully between his teeth, and so I lay him gently on the ancient mattress and covered him with every blanket I could lay hands on, desperate to stop the chill of his skin which should not have been there on a summer's night.

I stayed by his side until he seemed to finally be sleeping, stroking his back while Violette petted his hair, and then we returned to the armchair, curled up together with a bottle of wine each, and got very, very drunk. And hoped that the next morning Victor would finally agree to separate himself from Otto and the strange life we had found ourselves living.

That night, cramped as I was, asleep on a chair with Violette's head on my chest, I still managed to dream. It was a dream of bombs and fire and the muted sound of screaming. And amidst it all stood my Bauer, one moment dressed in his fitted cream suit, the next in his blouse and skirt, the moment after in his silk kaftan the colour of the sea, his hair wild about his face as he attempted to contact me using the crab phone he had made those years ago at the cottage at Nice. But in the dream I could not reply, for my own phone had been destroyed and all that I had were shards of crab shell and twisted scraps of metal.

I awoke from that dream with a jolt and a feeling of dread, my head aching and my stomach churning, and a desperate need to hold Victor close and reassure him of my love. And so I did. I carefully settled Violette into the armchair and covered her slim frame with a blanket, noting that she too had lost weight over the last year, and then crawled into bed beside my Bauer. His body was warm and soft under my hands and even in his sleep his foot crept back to tangle between my legs, seeking comfort and offering it all at once. I pressed my face into his nest of hair - which was past his shoulders by then even when tangled - and fell back into a sleep that was blessedly dreamless, if short.

That same dream however, never really left me, and was the last to visit me this very night past... so I fear that now I must set my pen down for a while and step back from my memories. They are my bête noire, my life's blood and my anathema all at once, and I must set them aside in favour of a walk in the garden and that new book of poetry just arrived from London.

My mind feels raw and I must let it rest for today. Perhaps tomorrow I shall write more - if my heart is not so heavy.


	17. Chapter 17

When he woke that morning there was a _moment_ \- a moment before recent memory returned to him - when Victor smiled up at me dreamily and pressed his warm skin against mine and hummed with sleepy contentment. But then reality seemed to come back to him all at once and I felt his body become very still, his skin erupting in goosebumps and his hands digging in to the flesh of my waist convulsively. His nails were as short and raggedly bitten as always and I remember clearly the painful scratch of them, not enough to break the skin but enough to leave a mark as he clung to me.

"Rosey?" he breathed, looking up at me with watery eyes.

"My Victor?" I responded, shifting my body more firmly against his and pressing a kiss to his brow, wincing a little at the tang of dried blood and sweat on his skin.

"Violette is right," he whispered, his lips wet against my collar bone as he spoke, and I felt a jolt in my chest at his apparent change of heart. "Oh god, Rosey. I should have seen it, should have realised, and yet I have been so absorbed that I missed what was right before my face. Rosey, will you forgive me?"

"Of course, my love," I said in a rush, kissing him again and blinking back the tears that were pricking at my eyes. "Of course. There is nothing to forgive, I-"

"How can you say there is nothing to forgive?" Victor interrupted, his voice cracking with strain. "I can feel your ribs under my fingers, Rosey! I can feel the press of your pelvis against mine! How could I have done this to you? To let you accompany me when you were unwell and then fail to notice when you began to fade away. And it is obvious now! How could I be so selfish? Rosey, how can you forgive me?"

I resisted the urge to sigh, but only just, for he had managed to miss the point spectacularly, but in a way that was so sincere and loving that it tore at my heart.

"Victor," I mumbled into his hair. "Oh, Victor."

"You shall have to remain here next month."

"No. Victor that is not the point. My health is not the point! Don't you remember what Violette said to you last night? You must know it is true," I pleaded. "Otto is using you. Please, Victor, you must see it. This cannot, must not continue."

I was begging him, my voice desperate and weak, yet I could not make myself sound strong, and when his arms tightened reflexively around my middle I was horribly pleased that at least my pain seemed to be getting through to him.

"I do not wish to see you hurt," he said in a small voice, the words hitching as his tears returned. "But I cannot bear to hurt him again either, to see him disappointed in me. What do I do?"

I was lost. So utterly, terrifyingly lost. Brash, passionate, angry Victor I could deal with. Manic, jittery, and even upset Victor I could handle. But when he regressed... when he became a lost child in need of comfort and direction... I was useless to him. I could not glean his thoughts or reflect his emotions and so I could not help him.

"When you first told me of him," I said, choosing my words with care. " You said that you could not think of him as your father, because of what he had done to you."

"I-" Victor hiccuped. "I was young and stupid and-"

"-Completely justified in your feelings," I countered. "And you are not stupid. You have never been stupid."

"I am compared to him," he said softly and I felt the brush of his damp eyelashes against my chest and the press of his nose as he shook his head. "I was-"

"-a child!" I said with possibly more force than was necessary, for he jumped in my arms and curled in upon himself as if expecting a blow and my heart, already broken, crumbled all the more into smaller, unfixable shards as I realised the implication of such a reflex. "You said that he hated you. You were a child and he hated you. You were his son and he abandoned you - threw you to the wolves and offered you choices that were not choices at all! From what I have seen he is still of that mind. A few months past he called you mentally incapable and sick and threatened you again with an institution if you dared to be so open in your _'perversion', _as he called it! My _'perversion'! _Our _'perversion'! _And-"

"-and I know all of that, Rosey!" he wailed, and it was a relief to hear a spark of his usual fire returning to his voice.

"So why must you continue to be loyal to him?" I pressed on, hoping to encourage his anger and with it his critical mind. "After all he has done to you and made you do?"

"Because I cannot simply stop! I cannot turn off my love for him, he is my father!"

The words hung in the air between us, fading slowly as Victor burrowed his head more firmly against me, and I was grateful that he could not see the confusion on my face, for I fear he would surely have pitied me. I never knew my father and had no experience of such dutiful love, or a love that could endure in the face of hatred and rejection. When I finally spoke I knew that my bewilderment was obvious in my voice but simply could not fathom Victor's loyalty.

"But he is hurting you."

"... I know. But... recognising that he is being cruel, and being able to actually break free from that, they are two very different things, Rosey. They are two very difficult things."

I felt like a monster as I continued - manipulating him when he was so horribly vulnerable - but I was determined to end Otto's hold over him. Violette had planted the seed but it was my duty to finish things.

"He is hurting me as well, Victor," I whispered. "I need this to stop. Please, do it for me?"

His tears, after I spoke those words, erupted uncontrollably and his sobbing seemed to tear at his lungs and throat, his fingers leaving my waist to pull at his hair. His entire body seemed to shrink in on itself, coiling and tightening until I feared that he would break. And he did, and his tears were greater than when he had mourned the death of his mother. But still I believed that what I did was right, and when Violette ran to our bedside upon hearing the commotion and saw Victor's distress she nodded to me, the skin around her lips and eyes tight with the pain she felt on Victor's behalf, but the look in her eye was of satisfaction - elated save for the profound sadness she felt at Victor's pain - and I felt that surely we would win through.

He cried for what felt like hours, though such could not possibly have been the case, and would not look at me or Violette for some time, wishing to be alone, or as solitary as one could be in our cramped quarters. But he did emerge eventually, his eyes swollen and his body visibly shaking under the weight of his anxiety. When he had recovered himself enough to speak Violette and I both agreed to go with him that day to his father's room, and I was grateful to Violette because I knew that there was a chance that both Victor and myself would have flagged in our resolve if left to face the man alone, having been cowed by him in the past. Violette, we knew, would have no fear in standing up to the man and even encouraged Victor to wear the clothing he felt most comfortable in, rather than the ill-fitting suits he usually wore to meet with his father - clothing chosen to hide his figure and his shame - and I watched the parade of emotions march across his face as he attempted to decide how far he should push Otto if this were to be their last meeting.

"I think perhaps-"

"-the pale blue?" I suggested, reveling in the ability to foreknow his choice, and in his smile of delight that our minds were once more in sync.

"The blue, yes," he replied.

"And I shall wear mine," I told him and he blushed delicately, a look upon his face that I had not seen for so very long, and I was filled with something akin to courage, of finally being able to protect and help my lover as I was meant to do. So we stepped out together, the three of us, and I hoped fiercely that we would be able to free ourselves of the darkness that was Otto Bauer's influence.

The room, when we arrived, stank heavily of sweat and illness - a dark smell that pinched the nose and hinted strongly of death - and Victor hesitated at the sight of his father's frail body reclined against the yellowed bedclothes. He appeared to be sleeping but as we walked through the door his eyes snapped open and both Victor and I jumped in surprise. Violette did not. She walked toward the bed in her slow, considering way until she could look into Otto Bauer's eyes, and folded her arms across her chest in a manner that made me shiver.

She had been waiting for this opportunity, I realised, probably since the day she had unwittingly heard the tale of Victor's sorry childhood, and she was determined to see Victor finally freed from his father's thrall, and did not intend to be intimidated by an old man's glare.

"Who is this?" Otto snapped, sneering at Violette before asking the question of Victor, who hurried to the bedside with his bundle of letters in hand.

"This is Violette, father," he told him, keeping his voice steady even though I could see the tension thrumming along his shoulders. "Violette Lafon, this is Otto Bauer."

"And what is she?"

"Violette is my friend, f- Otto," he corrected himself subtly and I felt so proud of him in that moment as he struggled not to simper under his father's glower. "My very dear friend. And she has come with me today to..."

"-lend support," I finished, and stepped forward to take Victor's hand in mine as Otto's glare was directed at me.

"Lend support?"

Strangely, that gaze, which had once seemed so overpowering, suddenly appeared feeble, and I glanced at Violette to give me the strength I needed to maintain myself as I continued.

"Indeed. We thought it best that Victor have the support of his closest friends today, in meeting with you for the last time."

"The last time?" Otto's eyes narrowed - two dark pits of hatred and anger, and beside me Victor nodded.

"Yes," he said quietly. "I have come to the decision that I cannot continue with our arrangement. The roads are no longer safe, nor are the border towns or refugee camps. Military presence has increased on all sides." his eye twitched where the bruise from his run in with the border patrol had bloomed into a small purple lump over his temple and I tightened my grip on his hand. "And Rosey's health has deteriorated. I cannot bring him with me and I cannot leave him on his own so often. I am sorry, Otto, but I cannot be your messenger anymore."

The old man's lip curled in a snarl but Victor did not flinch and I was so very proud of him for that. I did not mind that he had used me as an excuse, not if it was easier for him to do so, to justify his need to stop, but Otto was unimpressed.

"His health has deteriorated?" he said scornfully, and I noticed Violette bristle at his tone and he teased his son. "He does not know what it is to be unwell. Do you not think that if I was well enough that I would deliver my missives in person? His health! Such nonsense. You foolish boy, he is trying to trick you."

"No," Victor replied forcefully. "He would never trick me, would never lie to me. He is my-" he faltered for a moment. "He... he is not well."

"He is weak," Otto spat at me. "And if he is unwell I am sure he could be attended by that whore who you send to me, useless though she is. He is not an invalid, he does not need you for a nursemaid."

"Jana is not a whore," Violette interjected. "And Victor is not foolish. Hold your tongue and let him speak."

"How dare you speak to me, woman," Otto said, turning his anger on Violette but she was not so easily cowed.

"I dare a great deal, monsieur," she said quietly, her voice like a snake in long grass. "For I have seen the results of your treatment of your son. I have heard what you did to him and I have witnessed the damage your influence has wrought. And we shall have no more of it."

Otto opened his mouth to speak but coughed instead, his lungs heaving and shaking as he fought his body for breath, his sallow cheeks turning an unhealthy shade of grey and purple. Victor moved to assist him but I kept my grip on his hand and he stepped back, and the three of us watched silently as he spluttered and wheezed.

"You... harpy," he gasped. "I have done no such... only what he deserved... he is disturbed..."

The coughing continued but the words we were able to hear made Victor close his eyes in pain and I wished I could hold him and reassure him but knew that such an action would not be welcomed under such circumstances. It was sickeningly obvious that Otto was no nearer to accepting or forgiving his son than he had been when Victor was eighteen and publicly exposed by his ex-lover, and that the redemption he had been dangling before his son like a reward had never been seriously considered. Otto had no intention of accepting his son, no matter what Victor did for him, or how he risked his life, and I watched as Victor's lower lip trembled as he too came to terms with such a horrible truth. But whilst he stood mute in his pain Violette had no intention of keeping her thoughts secret.

"You truly think that of him?" she asked, her head cocked to the side, gazing upon him as though he were some sort of vermin she had unexpectedly discovered in her kitchen. "You think he deserved to be driven from his home and disowned by his parents? Or do you think he should have been locked away? Put in to solitary confinement. Drugged. Beaten. Neglected. God only knows what else. I have seen those places, Monsieur, and I would not wish such a life upon even my greatest enemies. Not even on you. Yet you were willing to do that to your son? It is you who is disturbed, Monsieur, not Victor. And you shall not hurt him again."

The quiet of the room was thick, like a winter mist despite the heat beginning to seep in through the shuttered window, and I resisted the urge to applaud Violette's words, brave though they were, because Otto, after staring long and hard at the petit woman who had dared to speak out against him, had turned his attention back to Victor, whose eyes were still shut but who seemed to sense the attention all the same.

"You would let a woman talk for you?" he rasped, his lips thin and blue as he struggled to speak. "Are you so little a man? I tried to make you a man... But you are beyond help... beyond saving... And you would deny me - your father - my dying wish? The world shall fall... and it shall be... upon your head... and at your feet..."

His voice faded with a rattle of his failing lungs and I watched as his body stilled, not thinking to inform Victor of what was happening, my eyes locked upon the sight of Otto Bauer finally losing his battle with his own mortality.

There is a strange, subtle shift that takes place when a body changes from being a living person and into a piece of decaying flesh. It is not simply the lack of movement and breath, that is obvious enough. No, there is something more - an immediate sapping of the body's colour, and a glazing of the eye, like curtains drawn across windows, and the sense that the dead person's body has shrunk, that something has been taken. I do not think that I believe in the existence of the soul or of Heaven or Hell or ghosts or angels, but, having seen death as I have I will admit that I understand how people might believe in the existence of the soul, for the moment of death does put one in mind of a shell being vacated, of life being swept out and up into the ether.

And such was the case that day. Without even a gasp to mark his passing Otto Bauer died, the light fading from his eyes along with his fiery hatred. And, in the seconds before Victor realised something was wrong and opened his eyes, I smiled.

Our walk back to the apartment was silent and Violette and I glanced at Victor constantly, wary of his pale, impassive face. He carried in his hand his father's small, battered case, filled with his correspondences of the last two years, which he had gathered together methodically and calmly in the minutes after the death and carried it with both hands, which meant that I could not take his hand in mine to offer him comfort even though I was desperate to calm the pain that I could feel radiating off of him in waves.

He had not cried over his father's body. When he had opened his eyes and seen that Otto was finally dead, that we were free, he had simply stared at the corpse, blinked, and then turned away to begin packing away the man's papers. He paid the landlord the next week's rent and informed the man that he could sell everything in the room on the condition that he arranged the removal of the body, and then had left. He had not paid any mind as to whether Violette or I were following and had shown no hint of emotion in his face or voice, and it frightened me more than any other mood I had witnessed from him.

When we entered our rooms I expected him to return to his bed (which is what I would have done) but he did not. Instead he went to his corner and picked up a brush, inspecting the hairs that were dry and brittle from disuse, before turning to his paint powders with a determination that bordered on the unhinged. Realising that he had no canvas or paper in front of him I hastily gathered up what paper I could find for him to use and he took it from me wordlessly, locking his eyes to mine for a long moment instead, and I stepped back silently to where Violette stood in the kitchen cutting up the last of yesterday's bread.

"How is he feeling?" she asked softly. "What is he thinking?" and I was surprised by her confidence in me, and that, when I opened my mouth, I was able to answer her.

"He does not know how to feel," I spoke softly, even though I knew he was beyond being able to hear me. He had already stripped off his suit, standing in his underthings and painting frantically and for a moment I was completely absorbed by the way his linen thin skin stretched over his prominent bones. "There are too many battling emotions," I continued, "and he cannot focus on any one long enough to feel anything. The only emotion coming through with any strength is pain, and he does not wish to feel that. He does not," my throat tightened painfully around the words but Violette's palm on the small of my back helped me to continue. "He does not wish to _feel_ anything just yet, not when there are so many conflicting emotions. He needs to ground himself - and lose himself - and that is what painting can grant him. Later, perhaps, I shall be able to comfort him, but..."

We stood in the dim corner of the apartment watching Victor as he worked, his movements fluid and beautiful, though often frantic, and his hair a mess of dark waves about his face and shoulders. We lit the stove and made coffee and toasted bread and watched him work until the day began to fade into dusk and I noticed the tell tale droop of his eyelids and shoulders, though he remained focused on pulling forth the colours from his mind and capturing them on paper.

"What should I do?" Violette asked me suddenly and I was jolted by the vulnerability in her voice. "I feel so responsible for his pain, Gui. What should I do? How can I help? How can I beg his forgiveness?"

I pulled her into my arms, unused to comforting her when she was so adept at caring for others, but offering her what comfort I could. I was always surprised by how small a woman she was in reality, when she seemed so much larger than any of the problems she had faced in her life, and as she melted against me I held her as tightly as I dared, willing her strength to return.

"You know he is incapable of withholding forgiveness to anyone," I told her. "Except possibly himself. And you are not responsible for his pain, Violette. Never believe that."

"But what should I do?" she mumbled against my chest and the fear I heard in her words frightened me.

"Go home and sleep in your own bed," I replied. "You may feel more yourself for a proper night's rest. And then meet us tomorrow night at the Café de Vie. He will need the company by then, and the wine most probably. He will recover, I promise you."

She agreed with a nod and left, asking me to follow my own advice and sleep, but we both knew that as long as Victor stayed with his paints, I would stay with awake with him.

It was a long night, which is a ridiculous understatement. He fell asleep two hours before dawn, leaning against the wall, smeared in paint, the dark shadows beneath his eyes merging with the bruise on his temple, and I gathered him to me and carried him awkwardly to bed, resolving, as I did so, that when we woke we would speak of how Victor was feeling. And then, I decided, we definitely needed to wash.


	18. Chapter 18

Losing his father was a horrible blow to Victor. As much as he had spent his life swinging between adoration and hatred of the man, Otto's death was not the relief that I had hoped for, for Victor, because his love endured despite his knowledge that that love had never been reciprocated. It seemed that Otto Bauer's influence would continue on even after his passing, his abusive treatment of his son marring his creativity and intelligence, undermining Victor's belief in himself. It lasted, I believe, the rest of his days, a scar of guilt and shame that did not heal properly and pulled and pained him regularly. It was to be his eventual undoing.

I awoke to an empty bed the day after Otto's death, and was immediately overwhelmed by panic, leaping up and tripping over the sheets that were wrapped about my legs, landing heavily on my knees in a way that would have been comic were it not for the intensity of my anxiety. Our rooms were silent and Victor was nowhere to be seen and my panic rose until I feared I would vomit, though there was little in my stomach to bring up, and I pulled myself upright hastily, kicking the sheets away from me as I hurried to search for my love.

There was no note, no sign of where he had gone or why - or when - and I struggled to calm myself enough to assess the situation, looking out of our window and estimating the time at early afternoon, and noting that his clothing from the day before was not on the floor where he had left it, though I could think of little use for such information. I did not know when Victor had left or what he had intended and my thoughts spiraled dangerously. Looking over his paintings from the day before did nothing to allay my fears for they were rushed and frantic with none of his usual detail and care and the emotions they broadcast (for my Bauer's work always purveyed some sort of emotion) were of pain and guilt and grief. Angry swipes of red cut through grey patterns and half formed faces peered out from the shadows in a way that made me feel uneasy and all the more concerned for Victor's well being.

I dressed myself hurriedly, knowing that I needed to find him, and rushed down the stairs with such speed that I nearly fell and was so absorbed in maintaining my balance as I reached the front hallway that I failed to notice that someone was entering the building, their arms laden with food and their head down.

We collided harshly and I finally, inevitably, hit the ground - sprawling backwards under a shower of pastries, carrots, onions and a bottle of sweet smelling olive oil - my head bouncing off the wooden floor and causing pain to race through my spine like an electrical current as the wind was knocked from my body.

"Rosey!" Victor cried, gathering up the food hurriedly and then kneeling beside me to carefully cradle my head in his lap, for it was he who I had collided with. "What on earth were you doing, Rosey?"

I blinked up at him, trying to regain my focus, but was distracted by the dampness seeping through my shirt where the olive oil had hit me.

"Why are oil sellers incapable of putting corks correctly into their bottles?" I asked him, dazedly, truly astounded that such a thing should happen to me twice in my lifetime.

Victor laughed at that - threw his head back and laughed in a carefree manner that I had feared he had lost - his entire body engaged in the act of joy, and I smiled as well, if a little woozily, as his loud cackle turned to irrepressible giggling.

"Perhaps it is just you, Rosey," he told me softly, stroking the hair away from my face and gazing down at me with his eyes tired yet overflowing with affection. "Perhaps the bottles simply anticipate. They know that I will wish to lavish you in oil and so they oblige. You cannot be angry at them for that, surely. They are only trying to be helpful, in their simple way."

I grunted by way of reply and tried to move but Victor tutted at me and continued to pet my hair.

"I thought you had gone," I told him, watching his lips draw into a thin line and his eyes narrow as he picked up on my concern.

"Gone where?" he asked, but I could only shake my head against his thigh.

"I do not know. Just gone, I suppose."

He bit his lip at that and I felt that he had perhaps been considering it, that he was not entirely past such thoughts, and that he was not wholly sure why he had returned.

"I love you," he whispered eventually, and I lifted my hand to the back of his neck, pulling him down so that I could kiss him.

The angle was awkward and the conditions strange but after a few moments I felt a heat run through him and his lips pressed more forcefully against mine, his hands tightening in my hair as the kiss deepened, our tongues lapping against one another's despite the fact that we were sitting on the dusty floor of the stairwell, in view of any one who chose to walk through the street door.

We released each other eventually, in order to breathe, and when we did Victor's breath against my cheek was ragged and close to sobbing, the laughter gone and his other emotions so near to spilling over that I could taste them. I pulled myself slowly to my feet, gathering up the food Victor had obviously just bought, and then held out my hand to him, reveling in the jolt I still felt in my chest at the warmth of his palm against mine. Together we made our way back to our home, but there was a tension between us as well, the knowledge that there was much we needed to speak of and emotions that would need to be released, but not just yet.

When we had reached our room I went to pull away in order to remove my oil damp shirt but Victor refused to let go of my hand and we put the food down awkwardly in the kitchen, hands still clasped, before he pulled me insistently toward the bed.

"Let me?" he whispered soft and low and I breathed deeply, relinquishing my will in favour of his and allowing him to tug my shirt over my head and push me onto the tangled blankets of our unmade bed.

He rubbed his hands over my chest, spreading what was left of the oil and reaching for the bottle that was always kept by our bedside for more, pouring it over me reverently. The slide of his hands over my nipples made me gasp, which brought the ghost of a smile to his mouth, and he ran his hands down my arms to wipe the oil from them before turning his attention to my remaining clothing, and then his own.

"Beautiful."

The word escaped me as he climbed on to the bed and knelt above me and it floated delicately in the air between us, the only way I could think to describe him, and the blush that rose in his cheeks was a confirmation of my assessment, for he was the most beautiful human being I had ever known, and yet he was eternally ignorant of it.

"I love you," he told me again, and I could see the tears building in his eyes as he fought to keep himself in check, even as his hands began to stroke my skin once more. "Even when he threatened to expose me, or have me sent away to a hospital for what I am," he continued in a voice that was both timid and yet sparking with passion, "I could not stop loving you. He shall hate me for eternity, his soul shall have no rest.. because of me, but-"

"But surely you do not believe in any of that?" I inserted, my mind in shock that I had never considered Bauer's religious beliefs and that he had never given any hint that he had any.

"Do you know," he said, after a beat of silence, taking up his oil bottle once more and drizzling more of it's lubricous contents over my stomach and hips. "In the days of judges and priests, when a hero or king rose up among the people they were anointed in oil as a sign that they were chosen and worthy, often before they even knew their own worth... And from that first night, when you told me of how Ernst spilt his oil upon you in the street and that was how you came to be invited to the party... like Fate... it has been my great pleasure to do the same to you whenever I can - to continue your anointing. For you are, to me, my Rosey, the most worthy man in this world, and the one of greatest worth, and not even my father could usurp you."

His hands had moved down to massage my hips and I watched as a tear escaped the sweep of his lashes to fall against my thigh, but he did not stop his movements. He swirled his hands over my abdomen in circling motions, running his fingers through my pubic hair over and over until he had succeeded in bringing my penis to full arousal. His own member was barely beyond flaccid but he focused solely on my pleasure and I felt powerless to move or say anything against him. I had relinquished my will to him and so I lay, spread out and oiled before him, willing to let him do whatever he wished and trusting him to never cause me harm.

"Even if the world does crumble, does fall down upon us," he sobbed quietly, taking me in hand and beginning to stroke whilst he spoke, causing my hips to buck of their own accord. "It shall not be your fault, Rosey, I need you to know that. You are special and I would give anything for you, my dearest, my constant Rosey." His pace quickened and I grasped the sheets beneath me as the desire within me began to coil, more quickly than I would have liked. "Whatever happens, Rosey, you are my anointed one. I do not know what will become of me, what will happen, what will be expected by my father's contacts, but... These things, these terrors, they will not destroy you. I can feel it, somehow. I only pray that you do not regret..."

His words trailed away as he leant forward and slowly ran his tongue up the length of my erection before taking the head in his mouth and I struggled to think over all that he had said to me, all that he was trying to say, as I was enveloped by his warm, wet, heat.

"Please forgive me," he pleaded when he had risen to draw breath, pressing his lips against my engorged member as I twitched beneath him, desperate to put his mind at ease but floundering for words as my brain continued to be overwhelmed by the physical sensation. "Forgive what I was under my father's control. I was not... I did not..."

"Victor," I finally gasped, petting his hair comfortingly and trying to draw myself back from the edge in order to answer him. "There is nothing to forgive. He was a cruel man, but his harsh words were just that - words. Threats and curses that hurt to listen to but have no real power over us. He was wrong to treat you so, and we are not responsible for his machinations, or for what he started. And whatever happens now, to his 'contacts', that is not our fault either. Victor, my love, even if the world _does_ fall upon your head and at your feet, I will _never_ regret loving you."

His mouth crashed into mine, a sudden and violent clash of teeth and tongues as he pressed our bodies together, his chest sliding against mine and causing me to shiver with want and a need so intense that I grasped his backside fiercely and thrust against him.

"Turn yourself over," he panted against my lips, his own body quivering and tense, and I released him reluctantly in order to roll on to my front, suddenly desperate for release, not just for myself, but for him as well, to feel him unravel so that we both might rebuild ourselves together.

The feel of oil dripping between my buttocks was not a surprise and yet I still gasped, which became an exclamation when he slid his hand down the crease of my backside. I pressed back against him, beyond desperate now, and began to plead with him, saying aloud every secret desire of my heart.

"Please?" I begged him. "I want to feel you, all of you. I want more of you inside of me than just your fingers, I want-"

My breathing stuttered as he pressed a finger within me and I pushed back against it until I felt the knuckle of his hand bump against the delicate skin of my entrance. I continued to beg him, moving my body according to his rhythm and moaning like a wanton when he breached me with a second finger. Still I wanted more, wanted to feel him fill me properly, to feel his body shudder and release within mine.

I had long let go of my misconceptions about intercourse as the consummating act of our relationship, that was not what I was seeking, I do not think. I simply felt the overwhelming need to give myself to him, and to feel him as deeply as I humanly could, and for him I wished to physically embody the safety and acceptance that he craved. It is a strange collection of desires and needs to describe, and almost impossible to truly do so, but I knew that Victor felt the shape of my desires and understood me for it was not long before a third finger was edging inside of me beside the other two, causing a stretch the like of which I had never felt before.

My entire being felt like it was afire and the noises I made, I will admit, were desperate and high. I pleaded for Victor to take me and eventually he let his fingers slip free of me and pulled me to my knees, massaging my backside with slippery fingers and pressing biting kisses to the base of my spine.

"I love you," he whispered wetly against my skin and I nodded dumbly as he straightened and brought his now erect member to rest against my entrance.

"I love you," I managed to splutter before he began to push inside of me, stretching my body anew and forcing a heavy moan from my lips.

It was more intense than I had imagined and I could easily understand how Victor's own experience of intercourse had been traumatic and yet for me the burn was delicious and the stretch of my muscles invoked a sense of... the opposite of homesickness... of homecoming, perhaps. And I was lost in the clamoring sensation, a feeling that only increased when Victor began to move his hips in a gentle rhythm of thrust and withdrawal.

His fingers dug into my sides, hard enough that they seemed to be scraping against my bones and I felt the pain and need and aching sadness within him, like a chasm within his heart, a gaping emptiness, a howling that needed to be silenced, screaming at him that he would never be enough, that he was irretrievably lost. And it bled into me through the contact of his hands and the pulse of his manhood inside of me as he began to move with greater force.

I was barely coherent - despite the whirring of my mind - clinging to the sheets as if at any moment I too would be swept away but eventually communicated to Victor that I wished to turn over onto my back. He withdrew from me shakily, clambering backwards to allow me to move but I did not let him go far, knowing that if he had time to think too deeply about his actions the fear would erupt and become untamable.

I pulled him into the circle of my arms and thighs, guiding him back to me and this time, when he pushed into me, the sensation was of alignment, completeness, home. I held him close to me and felt him sigh against my chest, his rhythm less frantic than it had been and more intimate as his hips met my backside in a steady beat that began to send sparks flying through my abdomen and up to my head, lights bursting before my eyes as my orgasm built.

"I love you," he whimpered, his lips wet against my sternum as I held him, and he continued to whimper shallowly as his pace increased and I felt his stomach muscles clench in anticipation of his own release.

"I will always love you," I replied, rolling my hips up to meet him, pulling him in to me, holding him secure in my body, my embrace, until abruptly, like a gunshot, my orgasm ripped through me, muscles rippling and tightening and my skin flushing violently hot.

He followed me almost instantly, his mouth opening wide with a silent cry in an exact mirror of my own, his hands gripping my shoulders hard enough that small bruises began to blossom, but they did not concern me. My body was floating on the heady rush of endorphins that our love making had induced and the gentle pulse of his sated member within me matched my heartbeat to the point that, when it slipped free of my body, I gasped in fear for a moment, thinking hazily that my heart was no longer beating.

Victor nuzzled his cheek to my breast to reassure me before sliding up to press his lips to mine in a lazy, drunken kiss.

"Do you feel-"

"-better?" he answered breathily. "Yes, I think so. Thank you, Rosey. What would I be without you?"

"More than I would be-"

"-without me? Probably."

We both laughed at that, relief running through our veins and making us loose limbed and relaxed.

"There is still a great deal we must talk of," I reminded him, when his lips left mine for long enough for me to speak.

"I know," he replied. "And a great deal to do, but-"

"-there is time."

"Yes. But there is one thing that we must do quite urgently," he said, the mischief growing in his voice with each word.

"And that is?"

"Bathe! We stink horribly, you especially!"

I laughed soundly at that, feeling my ribs heave against his as he grinned at me naughtily, proud to have elicited such a reaction.

"My thoughts precisely," I said, when I had recovered and truly, between the dust, sweat, blood and paint of the last few days, and the oil, tears and semen of the morning, I am sure that we must have smelled and looked atrocious, but it seemed a trifling thing when compared to the joy of having a smiling Bauer in my arms and the belief that our lives would return to normal. If only it had been that simple.


	19. Chapter 19

_**Our story continues...**_

My dearest -,

I must begin, of course, by reaffirming my assurances to you that I am quite recovered and perfectly capable of putting pen to paper. The doctor was with me again this morning and feels confident that my heart is strong and hale and that the incident of Friday evening was nothing more than an old man's 'funny turn' as he so eloquently put it, and not the more serious attack we both feared it was at the time. I must continue then by apologising for so neglecting my writing to you. It has been painful to me to be incapable of continuing the story whilst I have been incapacitated but even without the distraction of a troublesome heart I fear I would have found it difficult to put my mind in order enough to relate to you how things began to end. I have spent these last two hours trying to decide how best to put this into words. It is a peculiar thing, is it not, that on some days one might write several thousand words all of which sit perfectly side by side in rows that flow just as they aught, and then on other days even the most basic adjectives evade one's grasp. So it has been with this narrative, but you need not fear, it shall be finished, my heart is strong enough for that, I think.

And so nothing else remains but to continue where I left off in the tale, in the aftermath of Otto Bauer's death, nineteen thirty-eight, the beginning of the end.

Victor, despite his smiles and easy disposition the day after our first joint experience of that most intimate form of intercourse, still grieved his father deeply. He reluctantly agreed to come out with me that evening and was welcomed so warmly by his friends - actors and dancing girls and models for the most part - that I very quickly saw the heat rising in his cheeks and the tears in his eyes at such a broad show of affection. He had not realised just how greatly he had been missed and we drank deeply of the wine that we were treated to by Monsieur De La Corre, the owner of our favoured club.

Jana cornered me within minutes of our arrival, her face tense and her fingers twisting harshly around the tassels of her shawl, pulling the threads tight against her skin until they left white marks against the brown.

"I went to Monsieur Bauer's room today," she whispered, her head down and her entire demeanor betraying her nerves. "Just to... find closure? I am not sure, but I went. I am sorry, Rosey."

I shook my head at her, wishing to reassure her in some way but not entirely sure how to go about doing so. We had only ever spoken to one another fleetingly and she had never before sought me out and, strange as it was, I began to realise that despite the several years of our acquaintance we were relative strangers.

"There is nothing wrong in doing so, Jana, and we appreciate all that you did for him in our absence. I know that, despite his general unpleasantness, you appreciated having someone to speak to in your native tongue."

She nodded at that, her eyes still downcast, and I could sense that there was still more that she needed to tell me.

"He was not so unpleasant as he made out, lonely and bitter certainly but when he spoke... his ideas..." her eyes flickered nervously toward the corner table where Victor was gulping his wine in a manner that was sure to give him terrible hiccups and a worse hangover. "He... had many visitors in the last few weeks, Rosey. I believe that he knew he was dying. He... left a will. What was left of his fortune he wished to be put toward his funeral and tombstone - not an unusual occurrence, I assure you!" she hurried to add when she saw me recoil at the knowledge that Otto Bauer had willed the last of his funds to his own remembrance. "Our people are pompous in death. They were once so in life as well but... things are different now." Her eyes slipped down again, to the tassels still wrapped about her fingers, and I noticed how the tassels, and the shawl they were tied to, were worn and faded but of beautiful design and quality. "Monsieur Bauer is to be buried tomorrow. It is the Jewish way. I thought you should know. He also... asked that his son not be mentioned in his obituary or in any epitaph at his graveside... His only other bequest was a modest sum that he left... to me. I am sorry, Rosey."

Her cheeks flushed with reflected shame, at being the one to give such information, but I was pleased to receive it none the less. And suddenly my curiosity was quite piqued.

"Why did you come to Paris, Jana?" I asked softly. "It must be difficult to be so far from any of your country men. What brought you here all on your own?"

Her lips pursed and she sighed eventually, looking up at me with eyes what were large and dark and troubled.

"When I was born I was baptised Johanna Isabella von Hasburg," she said proudly. "Life was good, those first few years, but then there was the war - my father was killed. Then the nobility was abolished, my mother died, my brothers joined the socialists. I could not stand to be there any longer," she stopped to let out a huffing laugh and looked pointedly away from me. "I was a stupid child with dreams of Paris, and there is no going back now. We all have darkness in our pasts, I suppose. The trick to life is to not let that darkness cast too great a shadow on our present."

I pulled her to me comfortingly and her laugh against my chest brought a smile to my own face, for she was right, you know, that we all have our darkness and shadows to contend with, and we do well to remember that before we think too harshly of those we meet, that they too are seeking to build a future brighter than the shadows at their back.

It was an emotional night all round, I believe. A toast was given in Otto Bauer's memory, and Violette and I wisely held our tongues for we could see Victor's need to find closure and peace in the wake of his father's death, and he was, if not lively, then at least less troubled afterwards. He ended up drinking far too much, leaning against me mellowly as he listened to the chatter and laughter and music, tracing idle circles into the back of my hand with his finger as he hummed a tune that only he could hear. And I felt something nearing peace as well. I knew that our lives could not return to what they had been, that we would need to find a new pattern and sense of normalcy, and I was prepared for Victor's unpredictable behaviour and swinging moods (and indeed there were many) but I truly thought, somewhere in the dull recesses of my stubborn mind, that our lives would settle back into something docile and habitual. I believed that our adventures were at an end. And instead the world went mad.

It began with the Surrealists, still squabbling over nonsense and attempting to cast Dali out of their circle, a move which always struck me as absurd if not exactly surreal, for Dali spoke truth (in my opinion) when he claimed that he _was_ surrealism. Victor and I were asked to weigh in on the issue and I must admit that in the first moments of being asked I was flattered to still be considered a man worth listening to when we had not been regular members of the once-prized group for some two years. It soon became apparent, however, that Breton chose us because he thought we could be easily manipulated - he had used me well enough over the years to boost his own opinions and approached us at the premier of a film so horrendously bad I cannot even remember its name to request our attendance at 'The Trial of Salvador Dali' as he so dramatically put it.

"We must save our movement!" he exclaimed to us both, having bought us each a neat whiskey in the cinema's snug. "It is imperative! The most important fight in the world at this moment! I know you shall see my way."

"You truly think so?" Bauer asked him, his eyes narrowed and his lips thin as he spoke. "The most important fight in the world? You think we should dedicate ourselves to this cause over, say, Mussolini's tyranny? Franco's mass murders? Hitler's take-over of Czechoslovakia?"

Breton's reaction to this rebuttal was not the one of shock or annoyance that I had expected but a slow, rather unpleasant smile and he stared at Victor for a long and unsettling moment before turning to me and continuing with his speech.

"Dali must be stopped, Gui, he spits upon everything we stand for, has turned surrealism into a money making enterprise for himself, and mocks those who aspire to true art!"

"We are all trying to make money, Breton," I shrugged. "I may not approve of his methods but we cannot hate him simply for craving popularity and he is barely seen in Paris anymore, why should we trouble ourselves to eject him from a group he so rarely frequents?"

My other question of course was why Breton was calling upon me for support, unless perhaps he had lost the support of others higher up the social ladder than I.

"That is, I suppose," Breton sneered in reply, "the response to be expected from one who has fallen to Gala's rhetoric - and voracious feminine appetites. I had heard the rumour, Gui, but I did not wish to believe it, that you too had succumbed to her poison and her bed! And your tastes! I have been told of those, Gui. Quite unexpected, I must say! Even for a liberal! And the use of a - But I digress," he said with the hint of a blush whilst I frowned in confusion over what he could possibly be talking of. "The point here is Gala and Dali. You must see that they are a great evil upon our ideals, our true art! If you join with me and vote for Dali's expulsion, I guarantee Gui, you shall be redeemed."

Beside me, Victor bristled at the language Breton used and I felt him prepare to fight the man for so dirtying my name, but he held himself back when I squeezed his hand, a silent plea for calm as the situation quickly escalated. I myself felt paralysed as my brain fought to process what Breton had told me, simultaneously ashamed and angry that my name had been used for gossip among the artistic circle I used to so adore. But Breton was far from finished with us.

"Nothing to say?" he enquired, leaning back in his chair with an air of condescension. "But I suppose such behaviour is hardly scandalous to such a pair as you. Not when Bauer here is engaged in far more... unspeakable acts, shall we say?"

"I cannot think of what you mean," Victor said quietly, his face a blank canvas. "But it is strange that you should think that spreading vicious rumours about us will make us more open to your cause. For a man who considers himself a liberal thinker and a socialist your control over this group is verging on the dictatorial and your underhanded methods amount to little more than fear mongering."

There was a beat of silence when he finished, a moment when the air was thick across the table between Victor and I on the one side and Breton on the other, but Breton plowed through it, a smirk upon his jowled face as he spoke, his voice friendly whilst his words were daggers.

"You do sound so very much like your father when you speak in that vein, Bauer, do you know?"

Victor's skin went cold and his hand tightened convulsively around my fingers at the statement, but his face remained impassive as he refused to show any weakness to the man he suddenly perceived as a serious threat. Breton's smile widened in response but his outward demeanor remained civil.

"Were you unaware that I knew your father, Bauer? We met when he moved to Paris and told me a great deal about you."

"My father was a liar," Victor replied, but his voice trembled on the last word and both Breton and I heard it.

"Ah, you see, he said the very same thing about you. Isn't that curious?"

Victor's hand in mine was physically shaking now and for myself, the bile had risen in my throat with every word until I felt that it would be a fine thing to vomit all across the man who was threatening to destroy us.

"You should not believe such false information, Breton," I told him bluntly. "It is not-"

"-Oh but it is," Breton rebutted. "And so you shall both help me with this. I know you are both capable of lies and deceit and now you shall do so in aid of _my_ cause. Dali shall be evicted from the Surrealists and you shall make it convincing. Or your secret will be out. Dali believes that art can be apolitical, that he can create what he pleases regardless of the political leanings of those who commission him - you should be pleased to argue against him. And that is what you shall do. Or I shall make the letters detailing Bauer's most obscene perversion public knowledge. Consider yourselves fortunate that I do not simply do so now."

He stood and left us there, sitting in the secluded corner of the bar with our hands clasped tightly together and our minds spinning at all Breton had revealed and insinuated.

"It never stops, does it?" he whispered, his voice so faint it was barely a sound at all. "It never stops and we are never free from those who would destroy us. My god but it is tiring."

I nodded, not knowing what else I could say for he had spoken my own thoughts, as he so often did, and I had no words of comfort to offer or solutions that would rescue us from our current trial. And so we sat, our hands clasped tightly together - hidden beneath the table and the dim lighting - until the whiskey was gone and the cinema was closing.

The walk back our apartment was a long one for we both felt more intoxicated than our actual consumption could explain, but we stumbled along in silence until we were safely on the quiet stairs of our own building.

"What..." Victor spoke softly, his throat raw and hesitant. "What exactly did he mean by your bedroom tastes, Rosey?"

"I have no idea," I answered honestly, my voice equally as rough and felt a relieved breath leave Victor in a rush. "I was completely perplexed when it was brought up and did not dare to have Breton elaborate upon it."

"I thought as much. I suspect Gala started those rumours. Such a woman does not wish to be seen as spurned and the last time we met you did pour red wine over her breasts... Perhaps _that_ is the strange sexual quirk Breton believes you to favour..."

"It is not funny, Victor," I mumbled as his shoulders began to shake as we approached our door. "This is serious. Breton would ruin us both. He wishes to blackmail us, harness us. How can you laugh?"

"But it is funny, Rosey," he said, spinning to face me, though his face held little true mirth. "Absurdly, hideously funny. I am never to be free, am I? Even now, when those involved in that shameful event are dead and buried, still I am to be tormented by it."

"What shall we do?"

"What ever Breton asks I suppose," Bauer whispered sadly. "We go from one slave master to another without reprieve. I do not like Dali but the man is still a genius. And we are forced to go down in history as those who expelled him from the Surrealists." He sighed. "I do not want to be remembered as such a fool."

I took him in my arms and told him he was no such fool, could never be, and kissed his jaw and neck and face until the smile began to return, like sunshine on a drizzly december morning - weak but still a joy to behold - and we went into our room and spent the night wrapped in each other's arms, unable to sleep but with no words that needed to be spoken between us. I was desperate to find a way out of our predicament for Bauer was right when he said that we had simply gone from one slaver to another, but could think of no way to ensure our freedom without Victor being put horribly at risk.

We watched in silence as the shadows of the night travelled over our cramped and decorated walls, fingers clutching at shirts and flesh and legs tangled and bruising as our bones pressed together through skin and too little muscle and fat. When the morning came, grey and glaring, still no solution had presented itself, and Victor drifted somberly to his paints, and I to my pen, like inmates facing the noose, innocent but resigned to the fate to which we were condemned.

And so it went. We played along with Breton's farce and pretended to care what Dali argued against us. It is true that neither of us were greatly impressed by his crude portrayal of Lenin and Victor was genuinely upset to discover how popular the lobster phone had become for he had never shown another living soul his own crustacean creations, but there were greater problems than these to deal with, for our return to the inner circle of the Surrealists meant a return to their parties, gatherings which now seemed overflowing with dangers.

We spent a full day debating privately whether we should continue to hold hands in public - even in our accustomed stylised manner - for fear that it would fuel the rumours circulating about us. We had heard many of them, tales that depicted me as depraved and sexually insatiable, doing whatever a woman asked of me for the right price, whilst Victor was said to be a willing and submissive third if the lady had the money to spend. They were ludicrous rumours, for we barely had enough money to feed ourselves each day and nothing close to the fees we supposedly demanded for our services, but there was a single grain of truth to the tales, and that was enough to turn people against us.

For it was known by more than a few that I was once a man for hire, in my younger days, and would work for a lady's pleasure, so the rumours against us were believed and we both began to fear leaving the safety of our rooms, but could not forgo the comfort we found in holding hands, even if it spurred the talk against us. The confidence we had once held was splintered and brittle and we struggled to attend all of Breton's soirees and maintain the party line.

Victor bore the brunt of the unwanted attention we received, I fear. For, whilst I was approached by women wishing to be taken and ravished, Victor was approached by those who believed we could be bought as a pair, and wished to do some ravishing of their own. It came to a head one night when I returned from the bathroom to see Victor standing flush to the wall with women on either side of him, their breasts pressed against his upper arms in a manner that I am sure they thought was alluring but which I knew would be making Victor feel horribly trapped and uncomfortable. He was not afraid of women, far from it for they made up the majority of his closest friends, but his response to sexual advances from women (indeed from almost anyone, gender aside) was panic.

His eyes, when they latched onto mine, were wide and fearful, a swirl of shallow, sand pool green rather than their usual blue, and I took that as my cue to steal us both away. Once he would have extricated himself with a mad excuse and a joke, charming the women who had him pinned while at the same time removing himself from their clutches. But his confidence had been leached from him and we were forced to rely on my faulty excuse that we were already fully booked and could not possibly help any of the ladies in attendance.

We made our way home as quickly as possible and did not speak until Victor was undressed and tucked safely into our bed, his pale skin prickled with goosebumps yet soaked with sweat and his eyes misted and unfocused. He had spent too many weeks attempting to cope with all that had happened, trying to appear normal and at ease when in truth he was collapsing within and now, finally, he could take no more.

It pained me to see him so, to know that when once he would have been full of ridiculous and pompous fabrications to excuse himself from such a situation now he had not even been able to flee the room without assistance. We had not had intercourse since that first time and I had not pushed him, knowing that he was grieving and still felt guilt that his behaviour had been so abhorrent to his father, but as the weeks passed and became months we had been less and less intimate, until days went by when we did no more than kiss. It was no wonder to me that such forward propositions as he had been met with should so upset him.

Yet still we were required to attend on Breton, to protect that final secret, the one which would almost surely have made us outcasts and very probably incarcerated. And when, on that last day of Dali's 'trial' Gala came to sit between us on the sofa whilst Breton and his fellow cronies consulted in his private study, we were both too weak to refuse her advances in a way that she would heed. She separated our hands just as she had before, twining her own long fingers with mine on the one side and Victor's on the other, and settled herself down between us.

"Well, well," she said smoothly, bringing our hands down to her thighs in a manner that made me feel uncomfortable and made Victor begin to shake like a leaf. "It seems that my Dali and I are to be thrown out of your little boys' club. How tragic. And how hypocritical, considering what other members of this little group get up to. But perhaps there is something you two can do to make up for it? Something-"

We never heard what she intended to say next for Bauer sprang to his feet, his face horribly pale and sweat soaked, his entire being thrumming with tension as he looked about wildly for the closest exit. I stood more slowly, not wishing to startle him further and guided him to the door, hoping to leave without so much as a backwards glance at Gala, who remained on the sofa, no doubt completely unrepentant of the trauma she had caused, but Victor turned back to her at the last moment, his face a portrait of anguish as he all but yelled at her.

"Why does everyone wish to have sex with me! Why can't you leave me be?"

He stormed from the room but as I went to follow him I heard Gala's Russian drawl behind me.

"Is he serious?" I turned and saw a lazy smile twitch beneath the thick red of her lipstick. "I thought it was an act but does he truly not understand his appeal? Is he unaware of how many of those women he surrounds himself with are hopelessly in love with him? Of how uncomfortable he makes other men who find him attractive against their more usual inclination? Is he truly so naive?"

I stared at her, long and hard, but she appeared to have no tell, no sign of what she was truly feeling, and continued to gaze up at me with humoured poise.

"Leave him alone," I told her bluntly. "You shall have nothing from either of us."

And so I turned my back on the woman and departed resolving never to return, whatever Breton threatened, and walked swiftly back to our rooms, and the safe haven I assumed Victor had sought. I was not sure what I could expect to find when I had climbed the stairs and arrived at our worn, wooden door. I wondered whether I would find my Bauer hidden under the covers of our bed or curled up in his old armchair with a mug of wine or book or both, or in the thrall of his paints and the catharsis found therein - or perhaps burning his fingers upon the stove in an attempt to make himself more coffee.

Instead I found him packing.


End file.
